


Punctuated Equilibrium

by Aleaiactaest



Category: Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Consent Issues, F/M, M/M, Mind Control, Multi, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Polyamory, Sticky Sex, Violence, gender does not work this way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-25 08:46:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 55,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aleaiactaest/pseuds/Aleaiactaest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Happens about ten years after <span class="u">Falling And Letting Go</span>. Yes, Optimus and Bumblebee are still female.</p>
<p>Optimus Prime and Sentinel Magnus have settled into their relationship, but they wonder if they need someone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Optimus Prime walked away from the cell slowly. She was starting to learn the names and faces of the Mini-Con guards. One of the guards, she thought his name was Scooter, asked her brightly, "Any luck?"

  
She gave him a wan smile and shook her head. Blackarachnia rarely wanted to talk, and when she did, she had little to say to Optimus but vitriol. She loathed being imprisoned in Trypticon Prison, and she hated Optimus more for putting her there. It did not matter to Blackarachnia that she was not dead like Megatron and most of his cronies. It did not matter to Blackarachnia that Optimus had kept her out of Perceptor's clutches; the head of the Ministry of Science was very, very keen to examine her unique physiology as invasively as possible. It did not matter what strings Optimus had pulled or what favours Optimus had redeemed. It did not matter to her that Optimus had cajoled Ratchet into being willing to at least give removing her organic taint a try. Only Blackarachnia's personal suffering mattered to her. Nothing anything anyone could ever do for her would be good enough, Optimus Prime was quite sure. That was Blackarachnia's nature.  
  
Optimus Prime would keep trying anyway. Fighting unwinnable fights was _her_ nature.  
  
Sentinel Magnus was waiting for her outside of Trypticon, idling in vehicle mode. He never went inside with her to visit Blackarachnia. They did not talk about it, because if they talked about it, they would fight. Given what they were these days, one of their fights could level a city block without either of them switching to second gear.  
  
There were always paparazzi, wondering what Optimus wanted with the technorganic freak, but she did not have to give them answers, and she never did. They rolled in silence to Fortress Maximus, where Sentinel kept his quarters, the traditional quarters of the Magnus since Powered Convoy Magnus had the place constructed. Sentinel had a suite in the Metroplex, too, but he did not use it nearly so often.  
  
As soon as the quarters' doors closed behind them, Optimus Prime pinned him to the wall, hands up above his head, held fast with one of hers, and her hip against his. She took his mouth, tasting the sour reek of resentment on him. As soon as she broke the kiss, Sentinel said quietly, not quite concealing his bitterness and anger, "Two years. I don't see you for two years, and first thing off the dock, you visit that _abomination_."  
  
Sentinel was always put out when Optimus went to see Blackarachnia, and he was even worse when she went to see Blackarachnia first thing after a long tour of duty. Optimus Prime knew this was going to happen. She nuzzled his neck and reminded, "I'm here now." She tickled his antennae with her free hand. The sooner he was flat on his back and moaning, the sooner he would not be complaining about this or that.  
  
"Now," Sentinel repeated, throwing the word back at her like a dagger. She could feel the tension in him, how he was the farthest thing from relaxed.  
  
"Let me make it clear just how much I want you," Optimus Prime said, nudging his legs apart with her knees. She dropped her hand from his antennae down to his inner thigh, stroking it. He was being petty and jealous again. A little love and attention would supress some his drama queen tendencies for a while.  
  
Sentinel Magnus was biting his lip now, but she could feel his engine hitch and thrum. He directed, "There's a state dinner tomorrow. You're going."  
  
"I'm going," she agreed easily. Ratchet would be seeing Arcee. Ironhide would be seeing Chromia. Jazz would be wherever the party was, and if he was not, the party would come to him. Bumblebee would be soaking in the adulation and attention that an off-duty Guardsman received. State dinners were boring and stuffy, but Optimus had no excuse not to go, and if she went, she could take any missed fun out of Sentinel later. Optimus let go of his hands and dropped into a crouch. She licked one of his hip joints and worked her fingers into the other.  
  
"With me?" he prompted, voice getting a bit faint. He put a trembling hand on her helm, little finger splayed out to run along the edge of one her antennae.  
  
"With you," Optimus confirmed. She reached her other hand around the small of his back and then dropped it, rubbing between his legs.  
  
His other hand clamped onto her other antennae, and Sentinel Magnus managed, "Let's take this to the berth."  
  
Optimus Prime murmured, "Gladly."

 

* * *

  
A series of increasingly determined nudges woke Sentinel. Optimus Prime looked down at him, reasonably pleased with herself. Sentinel could not quite match her enhanced endurance, but he was very, very motivated to keep her satisfied. His reasons were not entirely pure. The public adored her, and as long as he had her, there were not quite as many voices calling for his head on a platter. He was a bit incoherent as he booted up, saying hazily, "Huh, what? Oh." Sentinel looked at her, optics unfocused at first but headed towards clarity. "You're actually here."  
  
Optimus sat back on his hips, hands on her knee. She teased, "Mmm, dream of me often?"  
  
"Oh, come on, if I open up a pleasure program you recorded for me, do you really think I'm going to drift off thinking about the diplomatic situation on Ijurn?" Sentinel protested. He stretched his arms, showing off those lovely upper drive servos he had and those wonderful broad shoulders.  
  
Optimus Prime was the commander of the Elite Guard. Sentinel was Magnus. More often than not, she was deployed on active duty, keeping the Commonwealth safe. He, on the other hand, was usually mired in mundane but necessary governmental work. They did not see each other often. When they did, Optimus Prime made up for lost time by nailing him just as many times as he could stand, sometimes until he literally could not stand anymore. Whenever they parted, they swapped pleasure programs. On all sensor channels, in high resolution, she would record a few solo sessions; he would do the same, and then they would have the pleasure of playing those out, together after a fashion even when they were apart. If Optimus stroked her probe while playing back a recording of Sentinel masturbating himself with a nice size 5 dildo in his port, it was almost like being inside him, and recordings of him playing with his probe made her ache for the real thing inside her.  
  
She admitted, smiling slightly, "Nice to know I'm more exciting than the price of energy conductors." Optimus pushed a finger into his port, checking to see if he was wet. She was a little bit overly hopeful on that front, she found, but she kept the finger in there anyway. If he was not wet now, manual stimulation might take him there, and then she could indulge her growing stiffness. Sentinel tensed at the intrusion, legs closing a bit, but his retractable dentata teeth did not snap on her finger, so Optimus took it slowly and gently, rubbing the rim with her thumb.  
  
"And you?" Sentinel prompted. Her touch was making him squirm underneath her.  
  
So he wanted to hear about how she had missed him, too, though she had already told him in a thousand little ways. Sentinel's insecurity frustrated her. Optimus verbally brushed him off with an ambivalent, "Now and then," and took her finger out of him. She pulled out a smooth, polished ball bearing, size 5 to fit Sentinel. Optimus spun it in her hand to start up the gyroscope inside, which would keep it spinning for a long, long time. Then she opened a tube of lube and squeezed a little on the ball, making it almost too slippery to hold. Before it could roll away on her, she popped it inside Sentinel.  
  
The slick, spinning ball inside his port amply distracted Sentinel Magnus from his pettiness. He arched back on the berth, gasping. He put a hand on the small of her back and then one higher up, bending her down over him for a kiss that she returned eagerly. Optimus dipped a finger back into his port, pushing the ball in deeper. Then she moved another finger into his port, scissoring him. Optimus Prime put her free hand on his shoulder, bearing down on him.  
  
When a trickle of warm lubricant rewarded her, Optimus withdrew her fingers and summoned her axe. She had actually lost her first axe in battle, but the new one Ironfist had made her fit perfectly to her hands once she had broken it in. Sentinel stiffened and gasped, worry flashing in his optics. Optimus Prime laid a finger across his lips to quiet him. Coupling could be about many things or nothing in particular, but she found it an important exercise in trust, especially when her chosen partner was as shifty as Sentinel Magnus.  
  
She eased the haft of her axe into his port. His body was taut with strain against her, his jaw clenched. Optimus Prime would not hurt him, though she could without even putting much effort into it with him so vulnerable beneath her. Sentinel Magnus had to trust her that she would not, and trust did not come easily for him. She pushed one of his legs back for better access and moved the axe haft in deeper, rocking it in and out. That ball was still spinning inside him, and every time the axe haft moved, it nudged the ball. His feet kicked and twitched, and she put her knees down on his to keep him from bucking. Optimus kissed the side of his helm and murmured to him, "Easy, now."  
  
"Easy... for you to say," Sentinel groaned. His cooling fans whined, a sound that thrilled Optimus much more than his usual whining.  
  
She sucked on his antennae, and he stroked hers. Her engine purred in delight, but Optimus kept herself focused. Her probe's segments were interlocking more tightly, urging her to just take him herself, but she wanted to see if she could get him off with just toys first. He would be more receptive after an orgasm.  
  
Sentinel Magnus was a creature of order and patterns, so Optimus Prime gave him one with steady, rhythmic internal stimulation with thrusts of the haft. Of course, he became accustomed to that after a time, so she broke the pattern then, speeding up to throw him for a loop. He grabbed her antennae harder, and she chuckled, rich and low in her voice box.  
  
He was tricky and contrary even in sex, too. Sentinel did not get wet easily, so Optimus liked to prime him with some stimulation from oral, manual, toys, or a combination. He tensed at the drop of a helmet, tightening to the point where it hurt for him and was not much fun for her either, and getting him to relax was a right pain. Sentinel did not really get off all that easily by any kind of penetration, so she had to take him slow and steady and lavish his sensory nodes with extra attention, but getting him to orgasm once made it easier to get him to another one.  
  
"Optimus, I-I-I..." Sentinel stuttered, turning to urgently nuzzle the side of her helm.  
  
"Mmm, are you coming?" Optimus inquired with lazy interest. She kissed his forehead and trailed her lips down to the tip of his nose, aquiver with delicious anticipation. She drove the haft into him just a bit harder.  
  
"Oh," his optics brightened, and he called, "Oh, _yes_. Oh, _Optimus Prime_."  
  
Optimus Prime grinned. She loved it when he called her name. She slid the haft out of him and sat up to wipe it off carefully. Sentinel took a moment getting himself back together and fished out the gyroscopic ball, which spun out of his hand and skittered off the berth, onto the floor, and into the far corner. He tilted his head to the side and said hazily, "Iiii will get that later. Probably."  
  
She extended out her probe and rubbed the tip against Sentinel's entrance. He snapped a firewall cap on her, and she eased her way on inside. Sentinel was nicely warmed up, wet, and about as relaxed as he ever was. He even pushed back at her as she thrust in and tightened just a little as she pulled back. Optimus was a few thrusts in when Sentinel reached for her cheek and inquired, voice unsteady, "Optimus? I'm kind of getting hard, too. Switch when you're done?"  
  
"Oh yeah," Optimus agreed easily, licking her lips. She wondered where to have him. Her primary port had a great workout yesterday, but she could go a few more rounds there before getting bored, or she could try her secondary port, or she could ask him to put on the splitter and do both, or she could just transform...  
  
He added stiltedly, "I, ah... I've been meaning to talk to you about... something."  
  
"Yeah?" she asked back, not entirely listening to him, though that did get her thinking.  
  
"I just, uhm..." he hedged, clearly not having picked the best time for deep thoughts. He was probably just going to dither on about the crime war against mod thieves again.  
  
So Optimus Prime asked Sentinel a question she had pondered for a while instead, "How would you feel about a third?"  
  
He sat up, pushed her out of him, and seethed with surprising coherency, "This is about that _freak_."  
  
Optimus Prime looked down at her stiff, hard probe forlornly. She rubbed the side of her helmet and said quietly, "I'm not talking about her. I'm talking about us. I know you're poly, I'm poly -"  
  
"We have dildos. You like those. There's that one that vibrates and delivers a small electric shock, you like that one, and we have that splitter -" Sentinel rambled, sounding a little panicked.  
  
"It's not really the same as having another Autobot there," Optimus observed, mentally kicking herself. Having two Autobots there would have been nice, but she would settle for just one if Sentinel would only lie back down and get out of his snit.  
  
"We could borrow the simulator again. I'm almost entirely sure Perceptor's erased the last traces of Starscream's coding," Sentinel pleaded.  
  
"Just forget I said anything," Optimus grumbled.  
  
"No, no, you're grumbling," Sentinel pointed out. "Did you want to try a different position? Or, uhm..."  
  
She moved off of him to sit beside him instead and retracted her probe. Optimus folded her hands over her knees absently and said, "I think a third would be good for _you_. I'm often away."  
  
"You're more than enough woman for me," Sentinel Magnus said immediately and a bit desperately.  
  
Optimus could not resist deadpanning, "We'll get you a man, then."  
  
"Another man?" Sentinel looked completely distraught.  
  
He looked so pathetic that Optimus dragged him into her lap and kissed him very thoroughly. She stroked his antennae gently to reassure him and said firmly, "I'm happy with you. You've improved immensely since you've started actually listening to advice. I'm not trying to replace you or cheat on you or suggest that you're cheating on me or imply that you're inadequate in any way. Okay? I just thought... well... we're both poly..."  
  
Sentinel leaned against her, optics down, and said quietly, "All right." Therein lay one of the problems of their relationship. He would agree to more or less anything in the berth room as long as it made her happy. It was very, very difficult for Optimus to tease out what Sentinel was actually interested in doing and what he was simply doing on the grounds that he did not want to lose her. All of the politics he was mired in were making him into a really good liar. Sometimes, she would plug into him to tap his sensory feeds, not for the kink value, but just to make sure he was actually getting off and not faking it out of a misguided desire to please her.  
  
Optimus snuggled him and held him tightly. She reminded, "You can say, 'No.' You always can. Like that time I wanted to have full-sensory cybersex over a video conference?" That was during her second tour of duty away from Sentinel after they had gotten back together. She had missed him more than she'd really wanted to admit. Full-sensory cybersex over a video conference had sounded like a good idea at the time! "And we both ended up infected with General Sideways," a Decepticon Chaos-worshipper who could transform himself into a computer virus, "and Ratchet had to patch Jazz into cyberspace to purge the Chaos-taint? You'd pointed out the potential security problems. I, uhm, really should have listened to you."  
  
Sentinel outright glared at her and said crisply, "That was one of the top ten worst days of my life." Becoming a chaos entity was one of his darkest nightmares. Optimus knew because he still sometimes woke up screaming about it.  
  
"Or the time I coaxed you into swapping bodies, that was not the... best of ideas," Optimus admitted, rubbing the back of her helmet and turning her gaze away.  
  
"Can we get off the topic of 'dumb sex accidents we've had'?" Sentinel asked crossly. "Now, was there anyone you had in mind?"  
  
"No, I wanted to approach this from a fresh perspective," Optimus admitted. So Sentinel was going to be stubborn about this, then. Maybe he would like it, after all. Optimus Prime could only hope.


	2. Chapter 2

At Councillor Botanica's suggestion, they went on a date with Tracks. He was older than either of them, something Optimus had some concern might put off Sentinel, who was honestly a bit ageist, though he was trying hard to put aside his more counter-productive biases. To look at Tracks, though, Optimus never would have known. His bodywork was absolutely immaculate, his paintjob without flaw. Sentinel always gave her the most wonderful detailing jobs, but being in the same room as Tracks made Optimus feel scandalously under-detailed.

  
The opera was not particularly to Optimus's tastes. The 'hero', to use the term loosely, had awakened a Decepticon stasis pod and forced the resulting flier to be his bride by hiding her wings. Of course, she eventually found her wings again and went on a dark, violent spree of revenge, piling bodies at her erstwhile consort's feet before putting his head on a pike to oversee the carnage for eternity. For some reason, the severed head kept singing the whole time. Then a team of Autotroopers took her down and hauled her off to Trypticon Prison. She asided to Sentinel, "Call me naïve," and he smirked and agreed, "I do," but she continued, ignoring him, "but I like my heroes a bit more... heroic?"  
  
He rubbed his chin and said, "Yeah, this was a lot of seditious rot, wasn't it? Autobots hooking up with Decepticons? Like that would ever happen."  
  
"Not what I meant," Optimus groaned, sinking back into her seat.  
  
Tracks did not seem to overhear the whispered conversation. Instead, he asked about her sometimes-wings for what had to be the nineteenth time of the evening, "About that Jetblade jetpack of yours... it's not heavy, is it?"  
  
Optimus Prime was not exactly sure why Tracks was so very interested in her jetpack. It was weird and awkward, and while she had more or less mastered it, the general Autobot public had decided to pity her for having it. Was it not such a crying shame that Optimus had to wear that dreadful, ugly thing, now and then, to fight Decepticons and keep the public safe? They supposed it was a necessary evil, but they could not understand why anyone would willingly put on wings if there was any other option. The Twins especially had it hard, and the media took Sentinel's Powermaster armour, which he left in his closet more often than not, as yet another excuse to take pot-shots at him, sniping that no proper Autobot Magnus would ever wear wings; that he was a disgrace to his forebears. Tracks did not seem pitying, though, but he unnerved her all the same. Optimus answered evenly, "It's pretty light. The Powermaster wings," Sentinel let her borrow his mods sometimes, "are heavier, but their lift ratio's a lot higher."  
  
Tracks made a face of distaste and sniffed, "Oh, I don't care about those beastly things."  
  
"Everyone's a critic," growled Sentinel, sitting forward in his seat to put his elbows on his knees and his hands under his chin. It made the lines of his cape ripple and flow. He did not wear the cape often, because Decepticons kept grabbing it at inopportune times, and, perhaps more importantly, because Optimus thought it made him look ridiculous, but it was suitable opera wear.  
  
"They are not beautiful," Tracks said crisply, "and in beauty, there is truth. But Optimus, you look simply ravishing with your Jetblade wings. Whatever the fashion magazines may say, they are _wrong_."  
  
"Uhm. Thanks," Optimus managed, not really knowing what to say to that. The jetpack was just a mod and not even one that she wore all the time. It was not like Tracks was complimenting her personality or the deeds she had done. She was the only one Tracks had complimented all evening, when she thought about it. Sentinel, Tracks had either pointedly snubbed or put down. Optimus did not like the feel of that.  
  
"Just how much lift do the wings have, anyway?" Tracks inquired smoothly.  
  
"Classified," Sentinel snapped, butting in. Her Jetblade jetpack was not classified, exactly, but the first version had been manufactured under rather unusual circumstances, as had the second. Sentinel was just in a mood.  
  
Tracks rose smoothly, the picture of elegance and grace, and he held out his arm to her and offered, "The show is over. Might we continue our conversation elsewhere?"  
  
"I'll have to call Sparkride and Horsepower and let them know where I'm headed," Sentinel noted. The pair of ninja guards was meant to be his bodyguards. In practise, he tended to ditch them, get into trouble, and save himself. Occasionally, Sentinel also saved them. His efforts to get them reassigned elsewhere were continually thwarted by the Council, who insisted he needed the protection given how Ultra Magnus had died. Sentinel had eventually confided in her that he was pretty sure those two were just spies for one or more of the Councillors and that was why he would never be rid of them.  
  
"You don't have to come," Tracks said icily.  
  
"No, he does," Optimus Prime corrected. That settled it in her head. She stood and did not take his arm. Instead, she stood behind Sentinel Magnus and ruffled his cape, rearranging the folds to lie more nicely. "We're a package deal looking for someone to share. I'm not interested in someone only interested in me."  
  
Optimus could feel Sentinel's motors stirring, through the cape and through his armour. From the little warning signs that she had grown to know about his behaviour, like the way his antennae were pinned back, he was quite possibly annoyed enough to put Tracks through a wall, but he would not do that with her hands on his shoulders. Instead, he just said curtly, "Thanks, Optimus," his voice dangerously flat.  
  
"Mmm, your loss," Tracks sniffed, and he took back his hand, which was good, because Sentinel might have taken it _off_.

 

* * *

  
Sentinel Magnus tried to ask out Cliffjumper Prime. He told Optimus that they had known each other a long time. Cliffjumper had helped him out with running sessions of Autoboot Camp when he was a Minor, and he had always listened patiently to Sentinel's rants. Finally, Cliffjumper generally agreed with Sentinel on most political issues, even when it was not popular to do so.  
  
It was past late, but Cliffjumper Prime was still in his office. He was fairly buried under datapads, and he was sitting on top of another stack to give himself some height. He squinted at the pair suspiciously and demanded, "Is this about the S.A.D. pod from the Hadean sector?"  
  
"It could be," Sentinel Magnus said thoughtfully, already distracted by the siren lure of _work_. Optimus Prime was something of a workaholic herself, but she elbowed him to keep him on task anyway. Sentinel amended, "Yeah - no. Why are you still here? Thought you hated deskwork."  
  
"I'm a loyal Autobot," Cliffjumper Prime said quickly, and he poked at a datapad unenthusiastically. His optics were unnaturally bright and pale in the way of one who spent all of his time staring at nothing but data. Optimus was inclined to concur with Sentinel that Cliffjumper Prime needed to get outside and stretch his servos.  
  
"You want to go get some drinks at the Intel mess?" Sentinel offered.  
  
"Can't. Busy," Cliffjumper Prime said. He flipped to the next datapad, skimming over it.  
  
Sentinel switched into his greasy-charming mode and asked, "Is there a time later that would be good? Talk about old times, catch up on what's new..."  
  
Cliffjumper shifted in his seat and pulled up one of the datapads he was sitting on. He replied after a moment of thought, "Don't think so. I have to have Mirage's newest villa wiretapped. Not sure how long that will take. You do, of course, have a scheduled Intel briefing tomorrow at the usual time."  
  
Optimus Prime pinched the bridge of her nose and gave Sentinel Magnus a look. He put his hands up and shrugged. Then he said, "Well... thank you for your time, Cliffjumper Prime. Your hard work and dedication are a credit to the Great Autobot Machine."  
  
"Is it just me, or Cliffjumper a bit... weird?" she asked, once she was sure they were out of audio and security camera range.  
  
Sentinel shrugged again and admitted, "Hey. I said I like him. I didn't say he was normal."

 

* * *

  
Then they went out on date with Mirage, which was made slightly uncomfortable by what Optimus had heard from Cliffjumper Prime. Mirage was a superbly handsome racer, however, with a lean, lithe build. There was a certain dignity to how he moved that belonged to an older, forgotten age. He had been built a noble in a time when that actually meant something. Optimus inwardly fretted over how Mirage and Sentinel might take each other.  
  
As she feared, they took each other very poorly indeed. She was becoming swiftly convinced that 'noble' was code for 'master of passive-aggressive snide jabs', and Sentinel continued to be Sentinel. Then there was the fact that Mirage liked hunting turbofoxes and had selected that particular activity for the evening.  
  
Something had gone dreadfully wrong because Optimus Prime found herself wishing that Megatron was alive again, just so she could have an excuse to _leave_ , even if it meant duelling the most dangerous of Decepticons. She stared at her cornered turbofox, which was trying to make itself look as big as possible to try to convince her that it was not terrified out of its head. Optimus looked back at the hunting spear in her hand and sighed. This was not a fight. This was not remotely fun.  
  
Across the way, behind a clump of crystals, she could hear Mirage and Sentinel bickering. Mirage's voice, so perfectly smooth and aristocratic, insisted, "If not for the bills passed by your predecessor, there would be more preserves like this."  
  
"For one, _I'm not Ultra Magnus, so quit blaming me for everything he's ever done!_ " Sentinel shouted.  
  
"You haven't lifted a finger in favour of repeal," Mirage sniffed.  
  
"For two, I have been _busy_. Ensuring enough credits in the budget for education and research," it was her influence that he even cared about those items in the first place, "while balancing in the increased threat of Decepticon aggression has weighed a lot more heavily on the minds of the public than the size of parkland."  
  
Optimus Prime looked left. She looked right. No, they had not noticed her or the turbofox. She scooped it up in her arms. It clawed and bit and smelled like it had crawled through a sewer, but she ignored its squirming. She understood that they were pests that chewed the cooling lines for energon farms, but maybe Ratchet could write a code patch for it to make it into a more useful creature, maybe something that hunted glitchmice, and then they could release it back into the wild. Optimus was not going to make the mistake that she had made with the Dinobots again.  
  
Sentinel was still ranting, "And you know what increasing the size of parkland does, anyway? It drives up property costs because then there's less of it! Unless you advocate open exploration for colonisation, and to judge by your campaign donation records, Mirage, you're as anti-colonisation as they come - _probably_ because you already own an awful lot of land, and you'll rake it in wheel over well if the price of land shoots up!"  
  
Optimus Prime transformed, stashed the turbofox inside her cab, and slowly pulled out. She gave the Twins a call and told them to come pick up their Magnus. A good Prime knew the value of retreat.

 

* * *

  
Sentinel Magnus dealt the cards, because Sentinel Magnus always dealt the cards whenever Optimus Prime brought her troops and former troops and friends of troops over to mingle with his. They had found out very, very quickly that he was very, very good at Praxus Fold 'Em and most any card game that used that deck, so he dealt, and he occasionally made rules calls, and he did not otherwise participate, which suited everyone as well as it could. Then he did not have to put up with Bumblebee, that sore loser, whining that he was 'cheating' again.  
  
"Ugh, Ratchet wins again?" Bumblebee groaned, reluctantly pushing over a pile of chips.  
  
Ratchet grinned widely and picked up one plastic chip to inspect it, commenting, "Now, if only these were real..."  
  
Sentinel collected the cards and shuffled, though strictly speaking, the shuffling was just for show. The cards had no face value at all as long as no one was looking at them. Only when an Autobot looked at a card's face did it collapse into a suit, number, sign, and position along the real/imaginary axis. The mere act of putting a card back into the deck wiped its face. He reminded, "You know the drill. ROT-13 on table places and roll for initiative."  
  
Everyone shuffled around into their new chairs and then rolled for turn order. Jetfire exclaimed, "Hah, I am being before Jetstorm!"  
  
"Oh, it is not mattering," Jetstorm pouted and then appealed to him for confirmation. "That is true, yes, Sentinel Magnus, sir?"  
  
"Well, well, well, at least _someone_ was listening when I taught you kids how to play," Sentinel replied, grinning. "Turn order doesn't matter one iota. It's just tradition."  
  
"I am still being better at the rolling than you are," Jetfire insisted, crossing his arms.  
  
"I still can't believe you taught them to play Praxus Fold 'Em," Jazz commented, leaning back in his chair. "Scrap, I can't believe that you _play_ Praxus Fold 'Em, and I've known you how long?"  
  
"Simple table top games are the cornerstone of community!" Sentinel insisted, pillaging one of his canned speeches. "And we've known each other since the time that I -"  
  
Jazz cut him off with, "Yeah, yeah, whatever."  
  
Sentinel Magnus rolled his optics. If Jazz still did not want to talk about it, Jazz should not have brought it up! Now that everyone had their seats and initiative, he handed out cards.  
  
Optimus Prime looked at her cards thoughtfully, and then she asked, "Sentinel, why don't we ask Jazz?"  
  
Jazz studiously hid himself behind his cards, a neat ninja trick that no one at the table actually bought.  
  
"Yeah, Jazz, why don't we ask you?" Sentinel needled. Mentally, he laid odds that Ratchet's streak was going to break this round, because Arcee _did_ cheat, even if Sentinel did not. The poor thing could not really help herself. Spy habits died hard, and the table was polished to a mirror-sheen. Sentinel was a little disappointed that the Twins had not noticed that reflective surface yet. Had they learned nothing he had taught them?  
  
"Because, much as I like you two on your own, I ain't getting between the crazy that you two got going on together," Jazz muttered.  
  
"Crazy?" Optimus Prime asked, frowning.  
  
"You remember the time the Ebon Knights kidnapped ya, and Sentinel hauled out in his full Powermaster Armour and busted in to free you?" Jazz said carefully.  
  
"Yeah, but she'd already challenged their Lord Marshall to single combat and won, thereby freeing herself, so it was completely pointless," Sentinel Magnus grumbled.  
  
"Completely pointless," Jazz deadpanned, "Sure, that's how I'd describe you single-handedly tearing a hole into an enemy flagship and scuttling it all by your lonesome."  
  
"But then the media harped forever that I'm a trigger-happy moron who puts on the Powermaster Armour at the drop of a helmet," he said, sulking, antennae flicked back.  
  
"Hmm," Optimus Prime said slowly, considering. "No, I understand what you mean, Jazz."  
  
"Makes one of us," Sentinel grunted. He did not think he was crazy. Optimus might be a bit crazy but not him. However, he liked Jazz enough not to press the issue. Jazz was too talkative for his own good, anyway. So Sentinel supposed it was just as well that he wouldn't have to hear Jazz going on and on about the most inane things even in bed.  
  
Arcee did win that hand and the next and might have won yet again, but Jazz accidentally-on-purpose spilled some Black Tar of Thentis, a rich, dark, sticky energon blend, all over the table, completely ruining the finish.  
  
"So... what about Override Prime?" he tossed out, idly. The First Lady in racing was smoking hot, hands down. Her Omega Sentinel was dead, but Override Prime herself had survived the Great War. She was a bit of an iconoclast, being one of the few public supporters of an expanded deep space exploration program.  
  
"Already tried. You won't get anywhere," Bumblebee piped up. She waved a hand dismissively.  
  
"Do I even want to know?" Optimus asked dubiously.  
  
"Slag, even with my booster rockets, I couldn't touch her!" Bumblebee complained. "And she won't give you a second look if you can't beat her in a race."  
  
Ratchet groaned, "Y'know the rockets ain't for picking up chicks, right?"


	3. Chapter 3

"Nice to see the Hydrax Plateau Memorial Hospital finally open, isn't it?" Sentinel Magnus enthused, giving her one of the most genuine smiles Optimus Prime had seen from him in a long time. "Whole project's been in the development Pit longer than I've been alive, ha ha!"

  
Optimus Prime nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. She was not as excited about photo-ops as he was, but she approved of the general concept of the Hydrax Plateau Memorial Hospital. It was dedicated to treating chemical victims, from spill accidents to chemical warfare to drug overdoses. The drug overdoses part had always been the sticking point because there were some on the Council who felt that junkies deserved what they got. Those Councillors used that excuse to categorically shoot down a chemical injury oriented hospital that would also treat war veterans and innocent accident victims. She suspected that most of the reason that Sentinel has bothered kicking the hospital proposal through the legislative process was that he himself had been attacked and seriously injured by Oil Slick at one point. His reasons were not the purest, but the result was still laudable.  
  
So she toured the facility with him and listened along as different medics gave sunny explanations of how the new facility was going to improve quality of life for those with chemical injuries all across the Commonwealth as a part of a cross-training program. Optimus had to admit, her optics kind of glazed over at all of the information around the time that a nurse started explaining the energon dialysis machines. Ratchet or Minerva would have appreciated the tour more. They should have been here, not her on Sentinel's arm.  
  
While a technician droned on about the ultrasound, Sentinel suggested lowly, "What about Magnificus?"  
  
Optimus discreetly elbowed him and murmured incredulously, "He's a Decepticon."  
  
"He's a diplomat. Sleeping with the enemy is practically his job," Sentinel said, quite contradicting his usual assertions that Decepticons were sub-Transformer scum.  
  
"He poisoned all of your light fixtures so that whenever they shone on you, you got sick!" she reminded, vexed.  
  
"Yeah, but I knew he did it, so it was all just waiting for Captain Depth Charge's crew to catch on," Sentinel continued.  
  
"He looks like Perceptor! You don't even like Perceptor!" Optimus continued, perhaps futilely, by now convinced that Sentinel was being ridiculous for the sake of being ridiculous.  
  
"You wouldn't like Perceptor, either, if you knew what he's done," Sentinel replied, voice dropping to the barest whisper.  
  
"Probably not," Optimus agreed tiredly. The great Autobot machine ran on the spilled fuel of innocents, she saw that fact now clearly enough. "What about Star Saber?"  
  
"You're just throwing out random names now," Sentinel snapped, oblivious to the fact that he was doing the same.  
  
Then the nurse showed them a bright, open atrium and warned, "Do be careful. The patients here are very fragile. They're Survivors who haven't opted for or can't survive a spark transplant."  
  
The light poured through the patients there like they were made of mesh. Optimus Prime could see flickering glow of their sparks through their porous armour. Her engine stuttered, and she touched her hands to her chest, where she kept the remains of the AllSpark, her Matrix. The relic was silent, giving no answer to her unasked question. There was nothing the AllSpark would do for these sufferers. Life was not that easy.  
  
There was someone else there, aside from the patients, a sporty, well-formed red Autobot. He had an easy smile and was talking with one of the patients, asking, "You'd like to see the arrow trick? All right, then!" He pointedly looked over at the nurse and then over to a target set up on the wall. After a nod, he fastened a blindfold around his optics and dove into a handstand.  
  
"What's he doing?" Sentinel Magnus asked, sounding genuinely curious.  
  
The nurse explained cheerily enough, "He's a volunteer who drops by to cheer up the patients when he's on leave now and then. He used to volunteer at Deltaran, but he decided to come here and luckily, too." The nurse's voice dropped lower, "Some of the other volunteers are a bit... unnerved by the Survivors. He's been treating them like Autobots."  
  
The red Autobot arced his slender, shapely legs forward over his body. In a flash of light, he summoned an energon bow, a ranged weapon that flirted with being scandalous in the hands of an Autobot, only he did not hold it in his hands. He held it in his feet. The audience collectively paused as he eased the bow string back. Then he loosed the arrow, and there was one bright, singing note as the string snapped back, putting a single energon arrow dead through the centre of the target.  
  
The Survivors gently clapped, a noise that sounded oddly like the chiming of bells. Optimus, Sentinel, and the nurse clapped, too.  
  
Then the nurse led them away, leaving the red Autobot behind to continue his morale work. His arm around hers, Sentinel sighed and confided to her, "Ugh. Why can't we ask out someone like _him_?"  
  
Optimus looked back over her shoulder and considered the idea. Then she shrugged and said, "Okay, we'll go ask him." She said to the nurse, "Give us a moment?" and she dragged Sentinel back.  
  
He flailed and protested, "What, right now?" and in his uncoordinated, flustered state, he walked right into the handsome young Autobot in the blindfold.  
  
Optimus Prime covered her face with a hand and asked, "Uhm. Would you like to go see the Tour de Orgenon with us?"

 

* * *

  
"Box seats, huh?" Rodimus Prime asked, looking around. He tapped the clear window at the front and looked at it this way and that before deciding, "Mirrored. We can see out, but the rest of the audience can't see in."  
  
"It's not really about luxury. It's better for security reasons," Sentinel Magnus said tiredly, like he had said it more times than he cared to count. He leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head.  
  
"I can understand that," Rodimus Prime said easily. They had left him the chair between them, and he flopped down into it, looking from one to the other. The Magnus and his Elite Guard Commander had asked him on a date after knocking him over. That did not happen every day. How could he resist a chance to get a peek at what two of the top government officials were really like?  
  
"Accommodations aside..." Optimus Prime said slowly, with careful consideration, "Do you like watching races?"  
  
"If I get a chance, sure," he answered. The chair was really quite comfortable. He could get used to it. "I'm no race fanatic, but I like them as much as any Autobot, and well... if this was amateur, I'd probably be down on the tracks instead of up here with you two." He smirked.  
  
"Oh, you're fast, are you?" Sentinel Magnus inquired.  
  
Rodimus Prime wondered if they were going to spend the whole time trading off like that and, if that was the case, just which of them was the Good Cop and which was the Bad Cop. His smirk did not waver as he replied, "Mmm, no. I'm not even the fastest on my team, to tell you the truth." Hot Shot had him beat in a straight-line sprint, either mode, every time. "Racing's about skill, though, skill and _handling_."  
  
The racers below them were off. The Tour de Orgenon was not a straight alternate mode race, but it had trickier rules about transformation than most. At all times, except for jumps and flips, the racers had to have at least one wheel on the track. That odd quirk made it favour those who had some access to their wheels in robot mode, because some of the obstacles were easier to navigate in robot mode, due to their size and shape. As much as he hated to admit it, someone like Oil Slick, who could do a hand stand on his wheels, would be at a considerable advantage.  
  
"Any thoughts on winner?" Optimus Prime asked. They were really going to play, 'Twenty of the most cautious and generic questions,' were they? Given their respective positions, they had to be mindful of what they said or did. Rodimus could still be bored by it all, though.  
  
"Override Prime's not in this one. Got deployed out to Praum, didn't she? Which is a shame, because it probably means it'll be Lightyear again," Rodimus Prime speculated. He drummed his fingers on the chair arm and watched the racers weave and jockey for position.  
  
Sentinel Magnus nodded and agreed blandly, "She would have been a pleasure to watch, but we're here. Is there anything you'd like to drink?" He glanced over at the mini-bar against the wall.  
  
"Are you going to get it for me?" Rodimus threw out, testing the waters. He had long wondered who really held the power, here. At his inception as Magnus, Sentinel Magnus had been shaping up to be yet another small-minded, petty tyrant, like many in the history of the Transformers, maybe even another Snapcase Magnus, known for his callous and crazed treatment of the populace. Then Optimus Prime became his Elite Guard commander, and things changed for the better. Now, Sentinel Magnus was certainly a better Magnus than the media would ever give him credit, but was she the true power behind the throne?  
  
"Sure! I wouldn't want to spoil Optimus's view," Sentinel Magnus teased, finally showing a hint of personality. He stood and walked over to the mini-bar. "Most of this is in the cetane midrange, let's see if we don't have anything with an octane rating instead..."  
  
Optimus Prime was indeed admiring the view, such as it was, and Rodimus Prime stretched just a little to really give her a good look. In Rodimus Prime's evaluation, their looking for a third could still be a publicity stunt. A publicity stunt was more likely than the motivations being purely political, because they would be courting someone like Councillor Levitacus or Councillor Avalon if that was the case. Rodimus said lazily, "I'd like a Comet, if you have the mixings for it."  
  
" _Re_ ally," Sentinel said, inflecting the word a bit oddly. The mixed drink was a strange choice for one of Rodimus's design line, which he knew, but he also did not care. Comets tasted good to him. Sentinel returned from the mini-bar and offered Rodimus a passable imitation of a Comet. He did not even take advantage of the pass to try to touch Rodimus's fingers. Rodimus Prime wondered if he ought to be put out by that lack of contact. Then Sentinel looked to Optimus and asked, "Anything you'd like?"  
  
She reached over, poked Sentinel, and reminded, invoking some private running joke between them, "Do I look like I want one?"  
  
"I'll have yours, then," Sentinel replied, smiling overly sweetly. He did indeed fetch himself two drinks.  
  
Rodimus tried to estimate the cetane rating on them by the glow and the colour and concluded that they were both low-grade enough that Sentinel's judgement would stay clear enough for highway driving. Despite the apparent decadence of two drinks, Sentinel was yet again showing restraint. After a few sips of his Comet, Rodimus decided to poke the cybercat some more and said bluntly, "You know I'm the same Rodimus Prime that Councillor Templar publically stated would make a better Magnus than you if you lived to be 20 million, right?"  
  
"I am aware," Sentinel Magnus admitted. He took a swig of one of his drinks and pointed out at the track. "You see how Racer-Bot ALPHA is cutting off Racer-Bot BETA down there?"  
  
Rodimus Prime's optics cycled a blink at the abrupt shift in conversation, and he said, "Yes, I see, but -"  
  
"- but look, there's Lightyear passing them both while they worry about each other," Sentinel Magnus concluded, rubbing his chin. "I really ought to thank you, Rodimus. Optimus would have had a much larger support base if Templar and Neo had thrown in with Eronus," a Councillor who had advocated for Optimus for Magnus, "instead of backing you." There had been a grassroots campaign that supported Optimus, but there had also been Rodimus supporters, who leaked away influence from the Optimus supporters, ultimately weakening both platforms, making Sentinel's formal ascension to Magnus easier than it would have been if the Optimus and Rodimus supporters had united.  
  
Optimus Prime crossed her arms and sank back into her chair, annoyed.  
  
Rodimus Prime narrowed his optics. Perhaps this date did have more political motivations than publicity behind it, after all. He would have to re-evaluate the power behind the throne hypothesis, too. Sentinel Magnus was sharper than Rodimus had given him credit for being. He shrugged fecklessly, playing the rash bravado some more, and said cheekily, "You're welcome."  
  
Rubbing the side of her helm awkwardly, Optimus Prime broke in and said, "Rodimus, I appreciate your coming with us. If you aren't enjoying yourself, don't feel obligated to stay. I'm sure we could even find you another seat to finish watching the race."  
  
"Who says I'm not enjoying myself?" Rodimus shot back, rubbing his hands together. He looked over at Sentinel. "Can we talk about the recent Clean Filters Act?" The Clean Filters Act banned cy-gar smoking in public, in establishments that sold fuel, and on military bases. It just so happened Kup had re-joined the military and joined Rodimus's team when Ironhide transferred out, and Kup was _livid_. Rodimus had his own opinions on the matter.  
  
"Oh, wonderful," Optimus Prime deadpanned. "We found someone who _likes_ butting heads with a snowplow."  
  
"Isn't it?" Sentinel agreed, enthusiastically enough that Rodimus was taken aback. "Clean Filters Act. Sure, go ahead."  
  
Rodimus Prime wiggled his fingers, feeling momentarily off-balance. Thinking quickly was one of his gifts, and he rolled with it. "So just why did you support it, anyway?"  
  
"Second-hand cy-gar smoke causes accelerated filter degradation, which clogs the medical system with filter replacements that could be otherwise avoided," Sentinel Magnus rattled off easily. "The Commonwealth will experience greater efficiency and cost savings if the medical system isn't overburdened with avoidable repair jobs."  
  
"All true," Rodimus Prime admitted, leaning forward, "but I see it as an issue of freedom against consent. Proponents of freedom of choice would say a bot has a right to do to his body what he'd like. The consent problem is that another bot may not consent to filter degradation but may _have_ to share space with a cy-gar smoker for whatever reason."  
  
Optimus Prime perked up and ventured, "Absolute freedom doesn't work in practise. No one wants to live in a society where others are free to do _anything_ to each other. The question is where to draw the line between the freedom to do and the freedom not to be _done to_."  
  
So the rhetoric of freedom was a lure for Optimus. Rodimus would remember that. He took another drink of his Comet and rolled it over his tongue to enjoy the icy burn of the chemical reaction in his mouth. Rodimus poked, "So, you buy all of that stuff you say about freedom in public?"  
  
"Every word," Optimus said quietly.  
  
"She's adorable that way," Sentinel Magnus teased, and she poked him again, glaring.  
  
Rodimus Prime pursed his lips, thinking. There did seem to be some real affection between the two, which complicated matters. There was a great deal of speculation that Sentinel Magnus had some blackmail on Optimus and that was why she stayed with him and did not oppose his rule. Rodimus did not throw out that possibility yet because it was not impossible for both coercion and love to be in play, but love being in play at all was not exactly something he had expected.  
  
When the race was over and they offered him a second date, Rodimus Prime accepted. How could he pass up another chance to pick their processors?

 

* * *

  
"You're back late," Kup observed. It was weird for Rodimus to think of Kup as just Kup and not Kup Minor, but when he retired, he had lost the rank Minor and the Elite Guard wings on his Autobot symbol. When Kup re-enlisted, he was only Kup.  
  
Rodimus Prime smirked impishly and held up a hand, explaining, "I had a date."  
  
"Hot date?" Kup asked, elbowing Rodimus.  
  
Rodimus laughed. "Not at all! They didn't even touch me."  
  
"Hnn. Anyone I'd know?" Kup wondered.  
  
"Oh, maybe," Rodimus said ambiguously, shrugging. He wanted to string this out a little to really get the maximum incredulity out of the old Autobot when he heard who it was. Kup was so unflappable that surprising him by any means was a treat.

 

* * *

  
"The Tomb of the Unknown Guardsman," Sentinel Magnus said, trying to keep his expression unreadable. "Not the first place I would have chosen for a second date, but then, the choice was yours, not mine." The Unknown Guardsman was unknown because the Decepticons had smelted the Guardsman's frame to unrecognizability and _then_ completely wiped the Guardsman's processors and purged all of the data buffers. The only thing they left intact, to mock the Autobots, was the Elite Guard emblem. A number of other Guardsmen of similar make and model perished in that battle, and not all of their bodies were recovered. So despite all of their forensic science, the Unknown Guardsman remained unknown.  
  
"I had a... friend who was in the Guard die," Rodimus Prime said slowly, more serious than Sentinel had yet seen him. He was not joking or provoking now. "If they ever found his body, Intel hasn't said. This is the closest thing I can do to saying, 'Goodbye,' to him, so I come here at least once whenever I have leave."  
  
Optimus Prime clapped him comfortingly on the shoulder. Sentinel tried not to be jealous of the physical contact. He was the one who suggested dating Rodimus Prime in the first place, and Optimus did look glorious next to him. After a moment of waffling indecision, Sentinel put his hand on Rodimus's other shoulder. He had plenty of canned speeches about death and grief, but he refrained from drawing on them, staying silent instead. Politics had taught him that what was not said could matter as much as what was.  
  
He wondered if he ought to mourn Ultra Magnus, here at this monument to Guardsmen fallen. His feelings on the matter were terribly mixed. Sentinel had utterly loathed Ultra Magnus for what he was coming to realise were the wrong reasons. There were, however, perfectly valid reasons to loathe Ultra Magnus. The more he grew to consider the Twins family, the less he liked what Ultra Magnus had authorised doing to them. The more Optimus prattled at him about fairness, the more Sentinel questioned some of Ultra Magnus's more nepotistic choices, like how after the Archa Seven disaster, Ultra Magnus had gifted Optimus with a commission as a Prime and a ship of his own and had instead left Sentinel on his own without help. The more Optimus went on about _justice_ , the less Sentinel could see any justice in the concept of bringing mentally crippled soldiers to life to use the weapons that Autobots would not. How else could Project Omega be explained? As for the balance between the freedom to do and the freedom not to be done to, did that balance really justify the Decepticon Registration Act?  
  
Yet Ultra Magnus was a hero once. When Sentinel was very young, little past a protoform out of the foundry, he idolised Ultra Magnus and wanted to be just like him. The teacher-bot made Ultra Magnus's exploits during the Great War and before sound so exciting, the very stuff of dreams. Somewhere along the line, that innocent hero-worship turned to bitter, twisted envy.  
  
So Sentinel mourned the Ultra Magnus of his teacher-bot's tales, the one that was not and had never been real.  
  
Eventually, Rodimus Prime broke the silence with a quiet, sincere, "Thank you."

 

* * *

  
"So how did you do it?" Hot Shot nagged as soon as Rodimus walked into the common room.  
  
"I don't know. What did I do?" Rodimus Prime replied good naturedly to his youngest soldier.  
  
"Get in the news!" Hot Shot exclaimed, and he waved a datapad under Rodimus's nose.  
  
He plucked the datapad away from Hot Shot and eyed the rag sheet on the screen. Rodimus snickered, "Ah, second page. Wondered how long it would take me to show up." The article suggested that Rodimus was a clone assassin sent by Megatron to murder Optimus Prime and Sentinel Magnus and stuff them into the Tomb of the Unknown Guardsman, never mind that Megatron had been verifiably dead for years. He laughed hard over the ridiculousness, doubling over himself and clutching his abdomen. "Whew, I needed that laugh. Thanks, Hot Shot."  
  
"That's really you, then?" Hot Shot badgered, his optics wider than usual.  
  
"That's definitely me. No evil clones there," Rodimus replied, still smirking a little. "Truth be told, I was just on a... date. Say, is Kup around?"  
  
"Out like a light," Hot Shot said cheerily. "Wait, a date? With _who_?"  
  
Rodimus Prime pushed past him, crept into the barracks, and quietly snuck up on Kup, who was sprawled out on his berth. Kup's engine sometimes ran in his defrag, and right then, he sounded like a chainsaw. Rodimus felt absolutely unrepentant about waking him with a whack to the helm and shoving the datapad in his face. Kup tended to boot up quickly, reaching full clarity a blasted sight faster than most Autobots did. To listen to Kup's stories, a fast boot was the difference between life and death in the Great War. Kup snatched the datapad away and growled, "What."  
  
"You asked me if I'd been out with anyone you knew," Rodimus Prime prompted, his grin absolutely slag-eating.  
  
Hot Shot peeked his head around the doorjamb.  
  
"Aw, Pit, lad!" Kup groaned, sitting up. "The scrap were you doing with that gear-grinding crankshaft-yanker Sentinel?"  
  
"Mostly quizzing him on fiscal policy. Turns out, he's not a figurehead. He actually knows his stuff. I was surprised, too," Rodimus answered, beaming and unashamed.  
  
"I swear, if that low-down turbo-weasel laid a hand on you -" Kup started.  
  
Rodimus Prime delighted in bringing up Kup short by saying, "I kind of wish he would. Second date and not even a kiss from either of them! Are my tyres too scuffed or something?" He twisted around, looking at them in mock self-consciousness.  
  
"So you really went on a date with Sentinel Magnus and Optimus Prime?" Hot Shot asked, voice hushed.  
  
"Uh huh. Two, actually, and I have a third lined up," Rodimus confirmed.  
  
"And what glitch got into your diodes t'make you think this was a good idea?" Kup demanded, visibly fuming.  
  
Rodimus Prime touched a finger to his lower lip, held his other hand out wide, and said, "Hey, they asked, and I was curious to see what my government officials are really like. I'm still not sure what they're up to. If they're trying for a publicity stunt, they must be planning something viral, because if they were planning to air on official channels, they'd have done it already. If it's politically motivated, I think they'd pick someone other than me, maybe Avalon."  
  
"Careful what you play with, lad," Kup warned, "I hear Optimus is a decent enough lass, and I remember how Optimus was back in boot. Good lad then. Sentinel, though... something has snapped in that wire-wicking head of his since I had him in boot. The bot's broken and dangerous, besides."  
  
"Oh, you know me, Kup," Rodimus Prime said, optics twinkling as he turned back toward the door, "I'm not happy unless I'm in over my head."

 

* * *

  
Sentinel Magnus did not object to Rodimus Prime leaping into his arms and clinging to him like Sentinel was the last escape pod on an exploding ship. He simply objected to the circumstances. Antennae flicked back in annoyance, Sentinel drawled to Optimus, "Did you _have_ to show him your little... friend on the third date?"  
  
"He was bound to find out sometime," Optimus Prime pointed out, subtly unrepentant.  
  
"I'm _not_ little," Sari pouted, hands on her hips.  
  
"Oh AllSpark, oh AllSpark, it talks!" gibbered Rodimus Prime, who was attempting to make himself into a second coat of paint on Sentinel Magnus.  
  
" _She_ ," Sari seethed, visibly fuming. She pointed an angry finger at Rodimus and then berated Optimus, "Good going, finding a boyfriend even more of a _nancy-bot_ than that blowhard there," and she pointed at Sentinel, too.  
  
"Pointing is impolite," Sentinel Magnus muttered. Sari was a Grade A goof-bot who needed a whole lot of straightening out, in his opinion, but her icky alternate mode was probably to blame. She was just the kind of stray and reject that Optimus tended to shelter.  
  
"I'm not a nancy-bot!" Rodimus Prime protested, and he climbed out of Sentinel's arms and landed in a crouch in front of Sari. He looked tense, visibly having to restrain himself from bolting in a panic, but at least he was not weeping, flailing, or breaking down into full-blown hysterics. He looked up at Optimus and asked, hesitant with disbelief, "This is a friend of yours?"  
  
"Hel _lo_!" Sari shouted, waving her hands above her head. "I'm right here; you don't have to talk about me like I'm in the other room! And I'm not a _this_."  
  
"Sari's a very dear friend of mine," Optimus Prime explained, looking a little amused by Rodimus's antics. "She even helped me in the final battle against Megatron."  
  
"But she's organic... er, I think?" Rodimus sputtered, incredulous. He turned to Sari and finally addressed her personally, asking, "You are organic, aren't you?"  
  
Sari smiled a great and terrible grin that Sentinel Magnus had learned to fear, and she said perfectly innocently, "Oh, sometimes."  
  
Rodimus Prime straightened up and frowned, quibbling to Optimus, "I don't recall the mention of an organic named Sari in the Final Battle. I _do_ recall the battle reports mentioning a _Cybertronian_ named Sari, one who was linked with the pastel Minibot that accompanied you when you first presented a captured Megatron to Cybertron. A Mini-Bot who swiftly dropped off the public radar."  
  
"Lover boy's smarter than he looks," Sari said, still smug as sin.  
  
" _Hey_ ," Rodimus protested, glaring at Sari briefly. Sentinel Magnus could not blame him. He wanted to glare at Sari all the time. The only thing that stopped him was that Optimus would elbow him, and she made it really hurt.  
  
"Technorganic," Sari corrected, and she transformed. She made a rather unremarkable little Minibot, lacking most of the vehicle mode components that would have given her a shot at actually being pretty, but anything was an improvement over her human alternate mode. "Ugh, Optimus wanted me to 'lay low'," she did the air quotes, "so I could have a 'normal' young-bot-hood, which really meant Dullsville on an energon farm with Bulkhead and teacher-bot Arcee harping at me to do my hyperspatial geometry homework. And 'break' time? Really means 'work on an energon farm' time. At least I get to go back to Earth for holidays."  
  
"Sari..." Optimus Prime said warningly.  
  
"Eh, well, studying and civilian work are pretty boring," Sentinel Magnus admitted, touching his forefingers together and looking away.  
  
"True that," Rodimus agreed, grinning.  
  
"I liked studying," Optimus tossed out there, crossing her arms.  
  
"Are you one of Blackarachnia's creations?" Rodimus Prime inquired, looking Sari over now with more thoughtful curiosity than fear now. His bravery showed, and Sentinel liked it.  
  
"That spider-glitch? Eew, no!" Sari protested, hands up. "I'm Isaac Sumdac's daughter. It's... a long story."  
  
"Actually..." Sentinel Magnus said slowly, "I would speak with you about that, if you have a moment?" He looked to Optimus. "I'm sure Rodimus needs a little time to process all this, and your first time meeting an organic is always.... traumatic."  
  
"Big bunch of sissies," Sari groused, sotto voce. "Whatcha want?"  
  
"Just a quick chat," Sentinel Magnus reiterated, thinking, _The quicker, the better._  
  
"Ugh, fine, but you had _better_ not be after me to change my alternate mode," Sari ceded grudgingly and followed him to his office, while Optimus Prime took Rodimus Prime aside to sit down on a lounge chair.  
  
Idly, he inquired, "That happen a lot, bots asking you to change your alternate mode? I thought Optimus didn't want you transforming in public at all, not after the incident with Captain Depth Charge."  
  
"I don't transform in public, and it _blows_ , so Bulkhead said maybe I should change my alternate mode, grr," Sari ranted. "Everyone makes fun of me and says I must be fixing to join the Militant Monoform Movement, whatever that is."  
  
"Your teacher-bot hasn't covered that topic yet?" Sentinel Magnus snorted in derision. He gestured airily and directed, "Take a seat."  
  
"Gonna wash it after I leave, aren't you?" Sari said, taking the seat anyway. She squirmed, showing not the least decorum.  
  
"None of your business," Sentinel Magnus said coolly. "What is your business, however, is Project Maximal." He rifled through his subspace and pulled out one specific datastick. "It's why you were made." He set the datastick on the table and nudged it a bit closer to the other side of the desk.  
  
"Why I was made? Have you told Optimus this?" Sari asked suspiciously. She did not touch the datastick yet.  
  
"I don't see that it is any of her business. If you choose to share it with her, that is your own choice," Sentinel said, folding his hands over each other. "I don't expect you'll appreciate the trouble I had to go to in finding those files." She seemed a most ungrateful creature in many aspects. "Shockwave's sabotage ran deep. Files were deleted, and more perniciously, files were altered with misinformation. It may be the task of several lifetimes to sort out how much damage was done. Add into that how secret projects are kept on a need to know basis, and most of those in the know are now deceased, and add into _that_ how abysmally poor we Autobots are at keeping proper records for mechanical lifeforms..." Their incompetence at record-keeping, the degradation of order, really did gall Sentinel Magnus.  
  
Sari scowled at the datastick for a long moment. Then she looked up and asked, "What's on it? I mean... what does it say?"  
  
Sentinel Magnus sighed and indulged her, if only to hear the sound of his own voice, "Project Maximal was initiated towards the middle of the Great War, when it really started to sink in to bots that organic planets like Daffodil II -"  
  
"Uhm, Daffodil II is a robotic world, a member of the Commonwealth," Sari corrected, shifting in her seat uncomfortably.  
  
Sentinel laughed, just once, before disabusing her of her naivety, "Daffodil II _was_ organic. It's not anymore." Ignoring Sari's betrayed look, he continued, "It became clear that organic planets like Daffodil II were going to be battlegrounds in the Great War, and not all of them had suitably advanced enough technology to make vehicle disguises viable. So an attempt was made to see if Autobots could assume... organic alternate modes. A few such protoforms were produced - no, I haven't been able to find out how many - and, as is done with much of experimental Autobot technology, loaded with an expanded capacity for modifications. However, the project was scuttled on the grounds of moral decency -"  
  
" _Moral decency?_ " Sari raged, standing up on the chair, hands clenched into tiny fists.  
  
"One of the engineers on the project convinced his higher ups that it was too cruel to burden an innocent protoform with the fate of an organic alternate mode." Perhaps he enjoyed how angry she was, just a little. "So the protoforms were put away in storage, and after a few logistics nightmares, ended up under the care of the Cyber-Ninja Corps with the rest of the emergency reserve cache of protoforms. A Decepticon thief broke in and stole a large quantity of the protoforms. I don't have the information from the Decepticon side about what happened next, but it looks likely that your protoform ended up on the _Nemesis_. After the _Nemesis_ sustained substantial damages due to... Optimus Prime's crew, your protoform must have been knocked out of the _Nemesis_ , where it landed on Earth and scanned the first organic creature to activate it... your 'father', I suppose."  
  
"That's... that's... _horrible_ ," Sari sputtered, and then she sank down into the chair, looking even smaller than she was. "I was made as a... weapon?"  
  
"Yes," Sentinel Magnus said, leaving it ambiguous as to which statement he was confirming, if not both.  
  
Miserably, she asked, "Isn't that... that the definition of a Decepticon?"  
  
There was a time he would have said, 'Yes,' to that, too. Instead, he clicked his tongue, swallowed that little word, and said, "Change is our nature. What you were made to be doesn't matter nearly so much as what you do with it." The Twins, after all, carried within them Starscream's code, and they were some of the finest Autobots he had ever had the chance to serve beside.  
  
"You really mean that?" Sari said, her distrust clear.  
  
"Do I ever mean anything I say, Sari?" Sentinel Magnus said, assiduously maintaining a completely straight face.  
  
She cracked up laughing and wiped her optics with her gauntlet, sniping back with her usual insolent air, "I knew you were full of slag." She took the datastick.  
  
"Ah, ah, language, young bot," he chided and stood, dusting his hands off. "Let's go see if Rodimus is ready for a second round of the Terror that Came from Planet Earth."

 

* * *

  
Meanwhile, Rodimus Prime admitted sheepishly, "I should have handled that better. I'm sorry, Optimus."  
  
"Sari's the one you ought to be sorry to," Optimus corrected. He was handling it better than most, but all the same, he was right that he should have handled it better. Every Autobot ought to handle it better, and someday, Optimus Prime hoped, they would.  
  
"I'll apologise to her," Rodimus Prime promised. He rubbed the back of his helmet and ventured, "I've, uhm, run into alien silicate lifeforms before, and Kup's told stories about organics, though I can't say I ever really believed him, but none of that really prepared me for... well... that." He held his hands out beseechingly. Then he self-corrected, "Her. And to think, she's not even an alien or a Decepticon. She's Cybertronian." He caught himself again, "Not that Decepticons aren't Cybertronians."  
  
Optimus Prime snorted. Now that Rodimus had his foot in his mouth, Sentinel would have shoved Rodimus's foot down his throat to see how far it would go. She was not that unkind.  
  
"Can I start over?" Rodimus asked plaintively.  
  
He looked so adorable right then and there that Optimus gave in and granted, "Oh, all right."  
  
"So, she's a Cybertronian with an organic alternate mode," Rodimus Prime said slowly, "and she's your very good friend who has helped you against Megatron -"  
  
"I like to think of her as sort of an honorary Autobot," Optimus Prime admitted. She was not sure if Sari would ever be awarded full Autobot status. To become an Autobot, military duty was required. In boot camp, she would be expected to transform, and the slag would well and truly hit the fan then if she did.  
  
"But how did a Cybertronian come to have an organic alternate mode? The media's always said that Blackarachnia's just another example of Decepticon perversion, but I don't believe everything I see in the news, especially when it's used as an excuse for baseless hate-mongering. Hate the Decepticons because they'd turn Cybertron into a tool for conquering the universe, because they'd unleash chemical warfare on their own troops, because they violate their prisoners of war - but what they turn into, even if it's organic, has always struck me as a ridiculous reason to despise them," Rodimus Prime expounded, passion clear in his very bearing. Then he laughed once, self-depreciatingly and a little bitterly. "Go on, tell me I'm talking sympathy for The Fallen."  
  
"Sentinel might. I wouldn't," Optimus replied, quite enchanted by Rodimus's little impromptu speech. She touched his forearm and smiled at him. "I don't know why Sari has an organic alternate mode. I'm just glad that you can accept her as a Cybertronian like us. Shows me I was right to trust you with this."  
  
"Heh. I won't tell a spark," he promised, covering his own with his hands, and then he teased, "Aside from the fact that bots would think I'm _crazy_..."  
  
"Is that why you have a bow?" Optimus Prime asked, considering his position that actions meant more than forms. The bow was an unusual weapon for an Autobot, as they preferred to make weapons of repurposed tools to remind themselves that they were not meant for war. That was why she had a fire axe, grapplers, and foam.  
  
"This beauty?" Rodimus Prime whipped out the bow and thumbed the string. "I made it myself. Closest thing to a firearm I could get away with. I don't buy the argument that using tools improvised into weapons and archaic weapons makes us any nobler than the Decepticons, especially when we're fine with putting heavy twin-barrelled concussion turrets, laser cannons, and plasma blasters on our fleet's flagship. And don't even get me started on Fortress Maximus!"  
  
"That is a fair point," Optimus Prime admitted. Captain Fanzone was a good man, albeit cranky, and he, like most human police, carried a gun. The content of their characters separated the human police from the crooks, not what weapons they chose. She moved closer to Rodimus, her optics dimming. "You and Sentinel are going to butt heads so much... in a good way."  
  
Rodimus stowed the bow, moved closer, too, and asked softly, "What's between you and Sentinel, anyway?"  
  
Chagrined, Optimus murmured, "Boot camp sweethearts." That was how it all started, anyway, Optimus and Sentinel and Elita-1 testing the waters together under the watchful optic of Kup Minor in boot camp. What else was between them was long and strange and painful.  
  
"Oh, come on, not what your official hagiographies say," Rodimus Prime groaned.  
  
Then Sentinel Magnus and Sari walked back into the lounge, and Sari asked, "What's a hagiography?"  
  
"You'll know when you're older," Sentinel Magnus snapped quickly. He squinted at Rodimus and Optimus, sitting so very near, her hand on his arm. Optimus Prime hoped he would not get jealous. Jealousy would kill any budding relationship they might be developing.  
  
"I _am_ older," Sari grumbled, and her optics brightened for a moment in thought. She was probably accessing her internal lexicon. "Oh dude, a hagiography is just a suck-up biography."  
  
Rodimus Prime smoothly rose to his feet, only to drop down on one knee before Sari. He bent his torso and head further down to eliminate more of the height difference, and he offered, "Sari, I'm sorry for my reactions to you. I can't excuse my past actions. I can only offer to make it up to you, if it is within my power."  
  
Sari rubbed her chin and gave Rodimus a scrutinising look like he was the greenest of rookies, and then, having reached her verdict, she declared, "Show me your moves!" She dropped into one of the beginner Cyber-Ninja stances Prowl had shown her, her dukes up.  
  
Rodimus gave Optimus a concerned look and sputtered, "But I'm a master of servo-to-servo combat!"  
  
Optimus pushed him at Sari and dismissed his fears, urging, "Just teach her a new trick."  
  
"Ah, that's a basic Circuit-Su stance," Rodimus Prime muttered, looking Sari over and considering just what to do. "Circuit-Su focuses on energy lines more than physical matter, so if an opponent contacts you with a lightly-wired area," he tentatively extended out his elbow to her shoulder. The move put her very thoroughly in his striking range, but as she was so much smaller than he, even her being at is his elbow's length made striking back quite a distance for her, "your first response is going to want to move away from the hit," which Sari did, "and counter-strike on a wiring-dense section of the opponent, such as his hand," which she also did, "but that, unfortunately for you, opens up at least one joint in the process of your movement, which I can then take out, and take you down."  
  
In a split-second, Sari was on the floor, both her hands behind her back, caught in one of Rodimus's much larger hands. She exclaimed, "Oh gosh, that was so cool! Show me how to do that?"  
  
Rodimus Prime gave Optimus a helpless, bewildered look, and then without much hesitation, he agreed, "Sure thing, Sari. This may take a while."

 

* * *

  
"This is just one of Fortress Maximus's balconies," Rodimus Prime observed, optics narrowed as he scanned the area. "It's a very nice balcony, and you've had a lovely tray of hors d'oeuvres set up, but it's just a balcony." He leaned casually against the railing, showing off his lean, aerodynamic profile, and added, "And oh, I see guards over on that other building there in case any assassins get any funny ideas into their heads what with you two out in the open. Cute. So let me guess. Jetfire and Jetstorm are going to drop on my head?"  
  
"How is he knowing what we are about to be doing?" whispered a distinctly accented voice somewhat above him.  
  
"You are breaking the cover, you fool!" snapped another voice, quite similar to the first.  
  
Sentinel Magnus grabbed himself a drink from the tray, polished it off in one gulp, and then stared straight up. Vastly unamused, he demanded, "Get down here, you two."  
  
On either side of Rodimus, a flying Autobot dropped into view, one orange and the other blue. They could only be the infamous Jetfire and Jetstorm. Jetstorm rubbed his chin, openly dubious, and complained, "Sentinel Magnus, sir, he is not looking like much."  
  
Before Rodimus Prime could protest, Jetfire argued, "What? You are being blind as usual. Make with the recalibration of your visual sensors," and he snapped his fingers at Jetstorm in what Rodimus vaguely supposed was meant to be an intimidating fashion.  
  
"Jetfire and Jetstorm. Sometimes also known as Safeguard. Most often, the Twins," Sentinel Magnus introduced, pinching the bridge of his nose. He grabbed Rodimus Prime by the arm and concluded, "Twins, meet Rodimus Prime. Rodimus Prime, meet the Twins."  
  
"Hey there," Rodimus Prime greeted casually, waving. He was a little ashamed to realise that he was much more comfortable around the pair of flying Autobots than he had been around Sari, but he had seen them on the news many times. The concept of them was familiar, though he had never met them before now. Besides, Rodimus found it easier to imagine an Autobot who just happened to turn into a jet than what Sari was. Jets were still machines.  
  
Jetstorm proceeded to peer right into Rodimus Prime's face, almost nose to nose. His visor was squinty and considering. Finally, he said, "You are not outing the freak, Mister Rodimus Prime."  
  
"Not like Optimus Prime's crew, they were being such baby-criers," Jetfire agreed, giggling.  
  
"Could we stop bringing that up? It was an honest mistake," Optimus Prime asked plaintively, hands open and out.  
  
The Twins glanced at each other, considering for a moment, and then high-fived and declared, "Perhaps... never!"  
  
She grabbed herself a drink, took a sip of it with a sigh, and explained, "Sentinel trained them, you know."  
  
"That explains so much," Rodimus Prime murmured. With sudden clarity, he realised why the drinks were there. Too much exposure to the Twins' quirks all in one go would cause any bot to need a drink to avoid a headache. He snagged for himself a beautiful sparkling pink shot tinged with baby blue and took it in one go.  
  
"Jazz trained them, too!" Sentinel Magnus protested, hands on his hips to display his affront. "Anyway, so... you're fine with flying Autobots?"  
  
"Entirely in favour," Rodimus Prime assured. "I don't see the point of artificial restrictions on what one can and cannot transform into. Saying that Autobots can't be jets just keeps out any Decepticon jets who might have sincerely wanted to defect, for one thing."  
  
"Ah, but you have not joined with the fan club," Jetstorm pointed out, arms crossed and his hand under his chin. He seemed confident he had caught Rodimus out on a grave technicality.  
  
"I can support what you represent without being your personal cheerleader," Rodimus Prime said easily, crossing his arms behind his head and stretching.  
  
"This one, I am thinking he has the stuff that is right, yes?" Jetfire said, grabbing one of the drinks. "If he will not make with the cheering, I will!"  
  
Sentinel Magnus grabbed Jetfire's hand and snapped, "Don't drink that!"  
  
"Hah, I am being soldier, and soldier make with drinking what they like," Jetfire said defiantly. He knocked back the drink. Then his fingers twitched, and his optics leaked a bit of windshield fluid. Unable to keep it down any longer, Jetfire dove over the side of the railing. The drink very much out, he flew back up, caught the railing and vaulted back over. His optics were still running, and he looked about as miserable as a keel-hauled cadet.  
  
"I said, 'Don't drink that,' because Praxus Blue Wire is _wretched_ ," Sentinel Magnus corrected, long-suffering, "What was Mixing thinking, including that on the drink tray? Loony Minibot." He patted Jetfire on the arm and handed him a different shot. "Here, have this one."


	4. Chapter 4

Optimus Prime dragged them out to the Hall of Records, which sort of blew Rodimus Prime's mind. He realised that she was more studious than Sentinel and a lover of history, but he did not realise that she took it this far. This was the last time he would see her in a while and perhaps the last time ever, as she shipped out back on active duty in a scant few hours. Would she want to see him at all when she returned? What did Optimus's choice of activity mean? Thanks to her asking the curator nicely, they were allowed in after hours, which meant they were the only ones there beyond the security guards. The lights were way down low to save power, giving the place an eerie feel.  
  
Rodimus Prime waited until Sentinel Magnus was occupied squinting at an exhibit on the Battle of Iacon and cornered Optimus in a darkened alcove. He put his hand on the wall behind her, just to the side of her helm. Rodimus leaned in, his nose so close to her chin that he could feel her electromagnetic field. He murmured the question that had been driving him absolutely insane, "Optimus, what are you two going for here, with me?"  
  
He simply could not figure out what they were thinking, and he had to know before Optimus Prime left. Their motivations might be political or for public relations, but neither of those options seemed to fit, no matter how much he tried to force the facts. They did not show him off to the media, but they did not deny their dates. He did not have any particular political clout; his fantastic Academy scores and his consistently superb track record in the field as an officer had caught the optic of Councillor Templar, no more and no less. Rodimus Prime knew he was attractive, but if all they wanted was a frak to suit some kink of theirs, there were some very talented workers in that very career, and they would have at least kissed him by now! In fact, he was becoming rather irked by their apparent lack of interest in coupling with him. Rodimus Prime saw how they looked at him, and he was not shy. Maybe Sentinel did not satisfy her, and Optimus was looking for a bit on the side who did not drive Sentinel mad with jealousy? Was there some strange conspiracy at work here for something insane, like framing him for a crime? The thought was ridiculous, but he was grasping at wires now. Did they just want a young-bot-sitter for companionship with Sari and the Twins? That idea was even dumber, but nothing they had done made any sense.  
  
"We want a third," Optimus Prime said, repeating what she had said before and what Sentinel had said whenever Rodimus asked them. He had hoped Optimus might give him a straight answer. She seemed less inclined to prevarication than her partner.  
  
Frustrated, Rodimus Prime hissed out, "No, I mean _why_? Do you think I clean up well enough for photo-ops that it might improve public opinion of Sentinel Magnus or something?"  
  
"No!" Optimus Prime's optics flashed with surprise. "That's not it at all. I thought you understood -"  
  
Sentinel Magnus loomed up behind him, and for the first time, Rodimus Prime was really, truly aware that the Magnus was taller than he was. The difference was not much, but with the faint lights casting long, stark, jagged shadows, Rodimus could _feel_ how much shorter he was. Sentinel Magnus asked softly, "Is Rodimus bothering you, Optimus?" and Rodimus shivered, recalling Kup's warning that the Magnus was broken and dangerous.  
  
"It's fine, Sentinel," Optimus said, equally softly. She slipped around Rodimus to stand between them. "Rodimus just has some misconceptions about what we're looking for."  
  
"Oh AllSpark, _another_ one who only wants you!?" Sentinel Magnus groaned, and he turned away, shaking slightly. His fingers twitched and flexed; his shoulders hunched up. " _Slaggit_. I really liked him."  
  
"Uhm," Rodimus Prime ventured, because he was nothing if not bold and reckless, "it's actually a different misunderstanding. In fact, it's a lack of understanding. I don't know what you want out of me."  
  
"We want a third," Sentinel Magnus repeated, turning back around.  
  
"That tells me _nothing_ ," Rodimus Prime protested, hands up and out, knees slightly bent. Perhaps their conspiracy was just to drive him completely bonkers! Maybe they got off on that, picking up unsuspecting Autobots and slowly cultivating their neuroses.  
  
"We're polyamorous," Optimus Prime offered in an attempt to explain better. "We're happy with each other, but we want to add a third to our relationship because we're wired for that."  
  
"If all you wanted was a threesome, you could have asked sooner," Rodimus said, chewing his lip.  
  
"We're not looking for a fling," Sentinel Magnus corrected, saying 'fling' like it was a dirty word.  
  
Optimus Prime added, "We want, well, a lasting emotional connection, too. Not just the physical components." She looked cautiously hopeful.  
  
"But you don't do that," Rodimus Prime blurted. "The higher echelons don't. It's all calculated for some kind of gain. You're not telling me you lo..." He looked at them. He looked at how they looked at each other. There was, as he had seen before, something between them. He covered his face with his hands and stammered, "I'm so sorry."  
  
Sometimes, being amazingly manoeuvrable and flexible just meant that Rodimus Prime found it easier to put his foot in his mouth.  
  
Optimus Prime's expression was unreadable, hard and cold, set like steel. She asked, "If you thought that, why did you agree to come with us?"  
  
"Because he wanted to take advantage of the rare chance to pick our processors," Sentinel Magnus remarked, as if he was stating something extremely obvious. He had one hand on his hip, and his gaze dared Rodimus to say he was wrong  
  
Rodimus Prime did not correct him, because Sentinel was not wrong. He squeaked, "You knew?"  
  
Sentinel Magnus's hand slid languidly down from his hip about a quarter down his thigh, and he explained, "Pretty obvious, really. You think I'd survive a quartex in office if I didn't learn fast to see when someone was trying to play me?"  
  
"Sure would have been useful if you'd been able to figure that out before the debacle with Lockdown," Optimus Prime deadpanned to Sentinel, earning a glare from him that she accepted with pride.  
  
"So if you knew, why did I even get a second date? Why am I here now?" Rodimus Prime asked, frowning.  
  
"Aside from how it was cute to watch you thinking you're so clever?" Sentinel Prime asked, having recovered from Optimus's punch to his ego back to a more typical level of slag-eating smugness, "Because manipulating a situation for your own gain and falling for someone are not mutually exclusive activities."  
  
"Oh, _slag_ ," Rodimus Prime swore. He felt a little twinge between his legs and raised his index finger to his lower lip. Playing Sentinel had been casual fun. Knowing that Sentinel was playing right back turned Rodimus Prime on something fierce.  
  
"And you'd know from experience, hmm, Sentinel?" Optimus Prime inquired innocently, leaning on Sentinel's shoulder, her arms loosely crossed.  
  
Rodimus Prime mentally kicked himself, hard. They looked so casually at ease and right with each other, one with the deviousness to do _anything_ and the other with the moral compass to make sure it was the _right_ thing, and he could have been in the middle of that with them if he had only taken their simple request at face value. Rodimus Prime had introduced complications where none needed to exist by overthinking instead of just going with it. He was young still, but he was certain he would not have made that mistake when was younger. Bitterness rose in the back of his throat to think at what he had ruined for himself. Rodimus Prime swallowed it down.  
  
Acting on impulse instead of thought again, and Rodimus Prime rubbed his hands together and admitted, sincere but neither pleading nor begging, "Well. After a screw-up like that, I can only get better from here, right?"  
  
"Sentinel usually sees me off before I ship out. Sentinel, would you object to Rodimus joining us, so we can see how better he can get?" Optimus Prime asked, shifting her leaning a little so that she could drape an arm over Sentinel's expansive chest.  
  
"If he doesn't mind, I think I'd object to him not joining us," Sentinel replied, openly leering at Rodimus.  
  
Rodimus Prime had only two words to say to that: "Yes please!"

* * *

  
"We'll have to be quick about this," Optimus Prime reminded as they entered her and Sentinel's quarters in Fortress Maximus. "I'd like to take longer -"  
  
"Do you ever," Sentinel Magnus teased. "I suppose I really ought to just let you at him? He doesn't deploy for almost a quartex after you leave. I'll have plenty of time to get to know him."  
  
"What?" Optimus Prime asked, incredulous. "Ever since I ended up in this female body, I've wondered what it'd be like to have two probes in me." She ignored Sentinel's slightly betrayed look because it was true! Males generally did not have a secondary port like most females did. Sentinel was not getting out of his loverly duties so easily just because she had a shiny new toy on her hands!  
  
"Uh," Rodimus started, his hands up, "I don't have a quartex left."  
  
"But I pulled a copy of your schedule and checked when Intel was doing your background check!" Sentinel Magnus protested.  
  
"Ah, so you _did_ do a background check!" Rodimus Prime exclaimed, incongruously grinning. "Here I was worried you didn't think I was a threat. But the date moved up. I leave in a few stellar cycles."  
  
"Could you two stop using invasion of privacy as foreplay or _whatever_ it is you're doing and get over here?" Optimus Prime asked impatiently. She settled herself on the couch in the suite's lounge and patted spots on either side of her.  
  
Sentinel Magnus touched his forefingers together and shiftily looked off to the side before static-coughing and inquiring, "What about the wash rack? Could we do it in the wash rack?"  
  
"Got a kink for wet and wild?" Rodimus Prime said playfully, optics brightening at the thought.  
  
"More like he's probably worried you're literally dirty," Optimus Prime grumbled, and she grabbed both of them and dragged them off to the shower, which was intended for robot modes. Some Magnii past had been pretty big, so the shower was built with more than room enough for the three of them.  
  
"Yeah, about that," Sentinel Prime said matter-of-factly and pried at Rodimus Prime's arm, "security scan time."  
  
Rodimus sighed, half smiled, and popped open his arm to let Sentinel plug in a diagnostic stick. He deadpanned, "I know I'm a sports car, but I'd really like a little more foreplay next time before you start sticking things in me!"  
  
He could have no idea just how bad Sentinel Magnus had been, in paranoia and in other aspects, even recently, but Optimus Prime did not wish Sentinel's more erratic days on anyone, let alone Rodimus. She fiddled with the shower controls. Some of the pre-programmed routines for the ceiling-mounted robotic sprayer arms were interesting, to say the least. She wondered which Magnus had managed to fit thirty Autobots into the semi-transparent shower cylinder. Optimus set the shower to 'three occupants - erotic,' which looked promising, and tried to dive in and give poor Rodimus a kiss for his troubles with the diagnostic stick and Sentinel's over-zealous caution.  
  
Apparently, Sentinel had the same idea, and the three of them collided in a not-unpleasant mess. Her lips crashed into Rodimus Prime's chevron and Sentinel ended up somewhere in the vicinity of his nose. The sprayer armatures started up, circling around them lazily, the pressure low. The solvent splashed over their bodies, cool and delightfully tingly against her metal. She could feel Sentinel relax a bit; he was still a bit of a nut about cleanliness, but he was her nut. Rodimus kissed her back, nothing more than lip, but she was not disappointed, even when he broke off early, because he looked so lovely kissing Sentinel in turn. She wrapped her arms around both of them, running her hands down their backs, lightly slicked with the wet of the solvent spray. Their hands were on her and on each other. She wished she could take forever just getting to know the span of Rodimus's body and letting him know her and showing him what she most loved about Sentinel's frame. She wanted to at least get Rodimus warmed up enough that touching his spoiler would be enjoyable for him, not a too-soon imposition.  
  
They did not have time for such decadent luxuries, and Optimus Prime, practical as ever, remembered that keenly. She suggested, "Sentinel, why don't you go down on Rodimus? I can get you up." Sentinel might have gotten jealous if she had gone down on Rodimus first thing, but she did not think even persnickety Sentinel could argue with being between the two of them and in the centre of attention.  
  
Sentinel trailed kisses down that flame-painted chest and asked, "Rodimus?" His optics were wide and lips slightly spread, his posture beckoning.  
  
Rodimus Prime could not resist a come on like that and agreed readily, "Go for it! But uhm... Optimus. You know double penetration's not always all it's cracked up to be?"  
  
Sentinel Magnus sank down on his knees and confidently licked Rodimus's inguinal plating, rubbing his hip joints with his thumbs. Optimus Prime sat down behind Sentinel and reached around to hold him tight and rub him with her hands. She laughed and explained, "We've played with toys before. Dildos, vibrators, plugs, a splitter..."  
  
"Oooh!" Rodimus said brightly, half in reply to her, half in response to Sentinel's teasing between his legs. He retracted his inguinal plating and extended his probe, which was painted with the same flames as the rest of him, Optimus noted with some amusement. He looked already a little stiff, but Optimus tore her optics away because needed to pay more attention to Sentinel's probe in her hands. She knew what he liked and just how to stroke him, base to tip and tip to base, what patterns turned him on and hardened up his probe. Rodimus Prime laced his fingers in and around Sentinel's antennae, and as Optimus craned her head around Sentinel's to get a better look at what she was doing, Rodimus's fingers brushed against her cheek. Sentinel had one hand wrapped around Rodimus's shaft while he lavished attention on the tip with his mouth, but he crept the other hand behind himself to stroke her thigh. Her engine started, thrumming lowly, and he moved back, touching just the solvent-wet tips of his fingers between her thighs. Optimus Prime shivered and opened up for Sentinel. Soon, his thumb caressed the retracted tip of her probe, and his first and second fingers toyed with her ports.  
  
"Ah, ah," Rodimus panted. "You're... good. Might want to, uhm, tone it down a notch? Think Optimus'll kill me if I come before I'm even in her."  
  
Sentinel Magnus was good at oral, Optimus well knew. He was a silver-tongued suck-up with a big mouth! Sentinel took his mouth off Rodimus Prime's probe, and she could see his smug, self-satisfied smirk reflected on Rodimus's dripping, gleaming body. He kept his hand on the shaft, though, even as Rodimus gracefully settled himself down on his knees and leaned forward to thoroughly kiss Sentinel. Rodimus threw his arms far enough around Sentinel to embrace Optimus as well and rub the back of her shoulders.  
  
As soon as Sentinel's probe stiffened in her hands, the segmented plates interlocking tightly, Optimus Prime suggested, "Rodimus in front, Sentinel in back?" She had let Sentinel into her secondary port before. He would know what he was doing there. For her first time with Rodimus, she did not want to throw a challenge at him if she did not have to. Her being a semi and him being a sports car was likely to be challenging enough as it was. As an ulterior motive, while Optimus Prime had let Sentinel Magnus into her secondary port a few times, she did not let him take her there often, so any time she offered Sentinel her secondary port, he tended to be eager and excited to comply, no matter what the other framing circumstances were.  
  
"I'm game!" Rodimus said easily. She stood and gave him a hand up, only to press him against the curved shower wall. Her body against his, Optimus could feel the vibrations of his revving engine inside him. The little solvent droplets on his frame shook and quivered. She traced a finger along his jawline and kissed him hard. He tasted different than Sentinel and different than her other lovers past, now that she had access to his mouth and tongue. His tongue slid against hers, feeling out the shape of her mouth, and she decided that she liked his taste.  
  
Optimus reached down for Rodimus's probe. Thoughtfully, he had already switched out for a size 4 and snapped a firewall cap on the tip, so all she had to do was guide him in. She could feel the pressure of the size 3, also firewall capped, at her secondary port that Sentinel had switched on, but he had not entered yet. He just teased, rubbing the rim and then leaving it alone to rub his length against her inner thigh before just barely pressing along the rim some more. One of his hands grasped her aft, thumb caressing small circles. With his other hand, he reached for her retracted probe tip, but Rodimus's hand was already there, so Sentinel's thicker fingers closed over Rodimus's slightly thinner while Rodimus petted her retracted probe tip. Her engine pounded.  
  
She looked Rodimus square in the optics and leaned into him, taking his probe inside. His probe felt amazingly smooth, gliding inside her port with barely any resistance at all. The texture did not even feel quite like metal, and Optimus broke the kiss and more moaned than asked, "Non-stick polytetrafluoroethylene?"  
  
"Hng, yeah," Rodimus managed back, grabbing her hip with his free hand for balance. "Last place... ah... I'd want a... uh... friction burn, right?"  
  
Sentinel Magnus was still baiting her, having slipped one finger inside her secondary and then a second, scissoring her, while still his probe just stayed tantalisingly near her rim. He fumbled some lubricant onto his fingers and made sure she was coated inside. Once he pulled his fingers out, Optimus Prime was tired of Sentinel Magnus's games, and she bucked back, taking his probe inside her, too, which nearly slid Rodimus's probe all the way out of her, only the tip remaining inside. Rodimus seized the moment to grind a bit, moving his probe against the sensors in the shallowest area of her port.  
  
Optimus Prime gasped at the intensity of the sensations that having two lovers inside her gave her, sensation that went beyond just the fullness of two probes inside her ports. There was the flickering feeling of their electromagnetic fields entangling with hers and of knowing without even looking or hearing or touching that they were there and so exquisitely alive. The tight clench of their hands on her body contrasted with how gently Rodimus stimulated her retracted probe tip. The powerful sound of all three of their engines drowned out the splash of the shower sprayers that made their bodies glisten so slickly and enticingly. Rodimus kissed along her jawline, she tongued his chevron, and Sentinel, from behind, nibbled on one of her antennae. There was so much going on that she simply planted her hands on Rodimus's spoiler, curled her fingers around the pointed tips, and bore down on him with her considerable weight and strength to hold him fast against the shower wall.  
  
There was simply no comparison to using a toy like a dildo or splitter. Toys were nice. Two lovers were overwhelming. Optimus Prime moaned out a wordless overload just from Rodimus's skilful initial stimulation of her retracted probe tip. She understood, deep in her spark, why Elita-1 had wanted, not emotionally or intellectually but on a sheer visceral physical level, both Optimus and Sentinel, and she felt a pang.  
  
Then Rodimus and Sentinel, who had been having some issues figuring out a rhythm of who would thrust into her when, hit their stride. Rodimus was a bit quicker and lighter with his thrusts, almost like he was scouting, trying to divine what would best please her. Sentinel was slower and more deliberate. He knew where they were going and just what stops to make to make her shudder in delight.  
  
Optimus Prime arched and swayed indecisively, caught between two equally wonderful yet radically different lovers. She wanted more of both of them, and that was what she panted, "More."  
  
The two of them gave her a new meaning for filled. Optimus felt so tight but not stretched; not pained. They were so careful, pushing no more than she could take but giving her all that she could, and Optimus Prime loved it.  
  
Optimus Prime loved them.  
  
Rodimus Prime's optics flickered uncertainly, and she felt him buckle a little, balance unsteady. His voice was very faint, almost drowned out, but he warned, "Op... Optimus? I - I - I, _oooh_ , I don't know that I can... hold... out..."  
  
"Just a little longer," Optimus Prime ordered, nuzzling his cheek. Her port clamped tightly, greedily on his probe. She needed him just a little longer, pistoning inside her and lighting up her every sensor node like an aurora.  
  
"Suh-sorry," Rodimus Prime whimpered, "Op-Optimus," and clasped her hip harder. He jerked a few times and then fell still, embarrassment tainting his obvious pleasure. Rodimus, curiously enough, did not pull out, but he detached his probe. Then he pulled a handle out of subspace and attached it to the probe, which stiffened again, eliciting a startled cry from Optimus. That neat little device essentially turned the detached probe into a dildo. The toy was not as good as having _him_ inside her, with all of his verve and vitality, but she was so close to coming that it would do for now. She made a mental note to pick up one of those attachments at Jackpot's Adult Emporium the next time she was browsing.  
  
"Nice trick," Optimus gasped, and she arched back as he moved the dildo inside her, which pushed Sentinel in deeper. A few swift, assured strokes from Rodimus and she came with her primary port, but a port, unlike a probe, was designed to come and come again with the right magnitude and frequency of stimulation. Rodimus clearly knew and, more importantly, cared about that fact, because he switched to slower strokes but did not let up.  
  
Secondary ports almost always took more effort to work to an orgasm. They slipped from pleasure to pain more easily, so they demanded a more cautious approach, but they also took longer to stimulate to climax, though some argued that climax could be more intense. Sentinel Magnus knew what he was doing, and he took her there, building it up slowly until the climax shook her like an earthquake, electric aftershocks of pleasure arcing through her like chain lightning, tingling and sharp and so hot that the solvent dripping from her frame hissed and boiled.  
  
Rodimus Prime reached around her and grabbed Sentinel Magnus by the antennae to yank him closer. Something conspiratorial was exchanged in glances and, mostly likely, radio between them. Sentinel slotted a link cable into Rodimus's arm to tap some of his datafeeds and returned the favour back to Rodimus. He pried at her arm, and she opened up to oblige whatever it was they were scheming, which apparently involved both Rodimus and Sentinel following the datafeeds for her ports.  
  
What they were doing felt so blissfully wonderful that she let them have at it. How much time she had left nagged at her in the back of her head, because she was Optimus Prime, and she was ever the responsible one. She swore they were trying to push her out of plateau and into orgasm again, but with which port first, she was not sure. Whenever she felt close in the primary, Rodimus slowed his thrusts to keep her teetering on the edge, while Sentinel steadily built back up her pleasure in the secondary.  
  
Then Rodimus slowed to a stop entirely and unlatched the handle. Before she could ask him what he was doing, he popped his probe back onto his probe mount, and it was _him_ in her again, not a toy. Her body heaved against his, but she found the wherewithal to elbow Sentinel and tease, "He has a quicker refractory period than you do."  
  
"And he got off before you did," Sentinel grunted back, unamused.  
  
Optimus Prime might have had a snappy reply, but if she did, she lost it, her thoughts submerged below waves of ecstasy. She was going to come, but she could not say where or in what order. Optimus felt so close in both ports that her vision blurred with exploding stars. Then, past the stars, she saw what Rodimus and Sentinel were planning. Optimus Prime came in both her ports _simultaneously_ , more intensely than she ever had before, the effect more multiplicative than additive. Electric ripples of utter exhilaration ricocheted through her entire body, bouncing and rebounding.  
  
She heard, only faintly, someone, perhaps several someones, calling her name, and felt steadying arms around her to keep her from falling.

* * *

  
Needing to be dropped off at Omega Supreme in Sentinel Magnus's truck bed because she did not feel up to driving had happened to Optimus Prime a few times. She still felt a flush of embarrassment. An entirely different flush still had not quite left her, though, and the bumpy, vibration-filled ride in Sentinel's truck bed not helped. Rodimus Prime had also followed along to wish her goodbye, and he came to an elaborate spinning stop and transformed to give her a hand up. Optimus started to insist, "I'm fine, really," but her hand tingled where his touched her, and she shivered.  
  
Optimus Prime got up to her feet and brushed herself off. She was fine for duty, really! Ratchet and Bumblebee both scowled in Sentinel's general direction, Ironhide had an eager salute for her and his Magnus, and Jazz just waved casually. Bumblebee's attention quickly shifted from scowling at Sentinel to openly checking Rodimus out. She snapped her fingers and declared, "Not bad! He'd look better if you got rid of last year's model."  
  
" _Bumblebee!_ " Optimus Prime snapped, optics flashing. She slapped a hand to the side of her helmet and flourished the other one out, gesturing to her team. "Rodimus Prime, my team."  
  
Ratchet opined, "Eh, not like she'd get anything for that worthless clunker as a trade-in, anyway."  
  
Sentinel Magnus pushed himself from a transform-up to standing and crossed his arms across that broad expanse of chest he had, one optic twitching madly. Optimus Prime sighed and grabbed him by the shoulder for a kiss that she wished could be longer. Then she leaned her nose against his and murmured, "See you when I'm back."  
  
"I'll write," he promised, optics flicking sidelong over her shoulder in a covert glare at her team. He always wrote, though she was never entirely sure how much of it was lost to the censors.  
  
"I'll write back," she agreed, as she always did. Him the Magnus and she his Elite Guard commander and still they could not afford to spare the time and resources for many video chats. Military protocol could be a pain and only became more so when Sentinel insisted on adhering to it.  
  
Her embrace with Rodimus was more of a loose, casual hug, but after she kissed him, he picked up on the trend and promised anyway, "I'll write, too?"  
  
"I'd like that," Optimus Prime said. She and Rodimus Prime had a great deal to discuss. Then she turned and barked out, "All aboard!"

* * *

  
"There was a trade summit two days ago, then an energy summit yesterday, more training this morning, and, well... you know," Sentinel Magnus said, sounding tired and unapologetic as he drove along the back alleys.  
  
"I know you're busy. I don't expect that you'll be around at the drop of a helm," Rodimus Prime replied, and he laughed. "Truth be told, if you were in a do-nothing career, you wouldn't be nearly so interesting."  
  
"Do-nothing. Hah. More like do- _everything_ ," Sentinel Magnus replied. He jerked to a stop and announced, "We're here."  
  
"Here is where, exactly?" Rodimus Prime asked, transforming.  
  
"Back door on the Cineplex," Sentinel Magnus said, and he flashed Rodimus a grin. He punched in a code on the door, which opened, half-bowed, and directed, "After you."  
  
Rodimus Prime stepped inside and said, "Security measures?" Sentinel nodded. "What are we seeing, anyway?"  
  
"The Wreckers and the Raiders of the Last AllSpark," the Magnus answered. If he thought an action holo made a good date flick, Rodimus liked how he was thinking!  
  
Rodimus Prime paused in the curiously empty hallway and looked at the poster for the holo. Impactor Major stood, front and centre, his harpoon half-loosed, about to be slung overhead like a whip, a smile as cocky as sin on his face. Behind him, there was a table with the AllSpark. Behind the table, Springer looked on somewhat vapidly, dropping his energon cube, which was inexplicably on fire. To the left, Oil Slick had a chemical syringe locked and loaded, ready to fire. Above Springer, there was Mindwipe, who seemed to be having a migraine, and above Mindwipe, there was Macabre, brandishing a scimitar. To the left of Oil Slick, there was another shot of Impactor and Springer, tied together to a stake and on fire, with a severed head at their feet. Above them was Blitzwing and above him was Scalpel. A razor snake curled around the tied up Impactor and Springer, Blitzwing, and Scalpel, framing them. The background was an ornate, ancient temple.  
  
Rodimus clapped his hands together and exclaimed, "This looks _amazing_! How'd you know I wanted to see it?"  
  
"Hello, background check, remember?" Sentinel chimed back, and he put a not-unwelcome hand on Rodimus's hip.  
  
"Ah, yes," Rodimus Prime chuckled, optics dimming as he leaned back against Sentinel. "What can I say? I just love the whole Wreckers mythos, and mmm, that Impactor Major was one lucky bot." He sighed and looked at the poster longingly.  
  
"Lucky?" Sentinel Magnus asked, his voice oddly inflected. "He and his whole team were slaughtered to the last bot by the Decepticon Heavy Brigade, which Megatron had created expressly to kill them. I generally consider that the opposite of lucky."  
  
"Ah, but Impactor had Springer, Springer with those broad, strong shoulders, that wide chest, that roguishly handsome lantern jaw..." Rodimus Prime murmured. Oh, if only Rodimus had been older or Springer had been younger and less dead... he sighed again and pushed the daydream away. There was a perfectly good strong, broad-shouldered, lantern-jawed Autobot holding him right now, one who was rather conveniently alive.  
  
Sentinel Magnus snorted and dismissed, "You can't take the  The Wreckers Do Daebola seriously! There was nothing between the Wrecker captain and his ninja-bot."  
  
"Hah, not The Wreckers Do Daebola. Kup used to run with the Wreckers, now and then, back during the Great War, and some of the stories he tells now that I'm not a little student anymore... well, they don't leave much to imagination," Rodimus Prime said, smirking. He looked sidelong down the hallway and managed to spot, just out of the corner of his vision, Sparkride or maybe Horsepower. If they were doing security detail, it was no wonder why it was so deserted.  
  
Sentinel made a face and grumbled, "Oh, I bet he does."  
  
They walked to the theatre, and Rodimus Prime, seeing that they had the run of the place, picked out the very best seat. He waited for Sentinel to sit down there and then settled himself on Sentinel's lap, purring, "If it's just us in this showing... well, I might block a bit of the holo, but I think you'll have a nice view, all the same."  
  
Sentinel Magnus rested a hand on the small of Rodimus Prime's back and agreed, "I think so, too."

* * *

  
"That was _fantastic_. The writing, the acting, the effects... that any of it made it past the censors," Rodimus Prime gushed, as they snuck out the back door. "Think we could hit a bar? I'm feeling a bit... hungry." He licked his lips and playfully nipped Sentinel's plow-blade.  
  
"I'd like to, but... I can't," Sentinel replied stiltedly.  
  
"Too insecure?" Rodimus asked wistfully.  
  
"I wish that was the reason. No, remember way back at the start of my reign, before I was officially sworn in? How I closed all the bars for fear of them being hotbeds of sedition? Yeah. Doesn't matter that I later used discretionary funds to make it back up to them when I realised that my judgement was... somewhat questionable. Slag, that story didn't even make the third page, when the closings were on the first page for days. The bars still haven't forgiven me. And then the Clean Filters Act made the situation even worse with a lot of establishments," Sentinel groused, hands on his hips. "And scrap it all. I _liked_ knocking back a keg or two at Maccadam's."  
  
Rodimus put an arm around him and gave him a squeeze. He said softly, "I read that third page. Have to, to get to the comics." He winked. "I'm sorry. I didn't know they'd kick you out." Then again, he should not have been surprised. Brawn, on Rodimus's own team, had never forgiven Sentinel for closing the bars, either. Brawn often commented that joker Sentinel was not half the bot Ultra Magnus was and never would be. Privately, Rodimus was glad because Sentinel had enough issues of his own without adding Ultra's on top of them. It was better for Sentinel to be his own bot.  
  
"If you'd like, we could go back to my quarters, and I could have Mixing send a tray up," Sentinel Magnus offered, almost contrite.  
  
"I was hoping to get into someone's quarters before I left, so yes, I'd like," Rodimus Prime agreed, smirking.

* * *

  
Rodimus Prime straddled Sentinel's lap, dipped a finger into a shot of Ankmor energon, and doodled idly on the expanse of Sentinel's chest. Sentinel watched him nervously and said, "It's a bit runny, isn't it? You're kind of making a... a... mess."  
  
"Oh, I'll clean it up," Rodimus assured, grinning lopsidedly. Messing with Sentinel was entirely too much fun. He loved the feel of his lover squirming and shifting under him. A little discomfort now would just make what followed even sweeter by contrast. Deciding that Sentinel was suitably artistically splattered, Rodimus leaned in and licked him, starting low on his abdomen.  
  
Sentinel's engine hitched and stuttered at Rodimus's choice of cleaning method, and he admitted, "Ah, I s-see. That's all right, then. That's... good, actually."  
  
"Mmm," was all Rodimus had to say as he lapped up the delicious glowing fluid dripping down Sentinel's chest. One of Sentinel's hands settled lightly on the back of his helm. Once Sentinel was clean again, Rodimus cuddled in his lap and tried to decide if he wanted anything else to drink or if he wanted to move right to dessert.  
  
Sentinel Magnus tentatively kissed Rodimus Prime on the top of his helmet, which made the decision for Rodimus. They leisurely explored each other's bodies. Sentinel, rather interestingly, did not just grope Rodimus's spoiler first thing. He did not touch it at all. Intrigued, Rodimus sat up a bit and asked, "Slept with sports cars before?"  
  
"Not exactly a whole lot," Sentinel Magnus replied evasively. "Why?" He was rather carefully rubbing Rodimus's fingers, which made the bowman about want to melt in a puddle on Sentinel's lap.  
  
"You're not just mashing on my spoiler like it's a magic button into my pelvic armour," Rodimus Prime explained. "I appreciate it." He kissed one of the headlights on Sentinel's chest.  
  
"Know how Optimus is all studious? She read up on what sports cars like," Sentinel admitted, working his way down to Rodimus's fingertips. "Guess she was right."  
  
"Yeah," Rodimus panted and nuzzled along the grill on Sentinel's chest. "My spoiler's got the wind on it whenever I drive. It's not all that sensitive until I'm already warmed up."  
  
"So enough theory... what else _do_ you like?" Sentinel Magnus inquired bluntly, his blue optics devious.  
  
"You could rim my arm pipes," Rodimus Prime said unthinkingly, and Sentinel did. Before Rodimus could quite recover, Sentinel pressed him with another question and then another, making a tour of all the most sensitive places on Rodimus's body in the order that Rodimus liked best. Rodimus wanted like burning to get a question in edgewise and ask Sentinel what _he_ wanted, but Sentinel did not let up, seemingly mulishly determined to see Rodimus a whimpering wreck.  
  
Rodimus Prime had not expected that, he thought sluggishly, his passion-fevered processors not good for much of their usual analytical tasks. To someone who did not know better, Sentinel Magnus tended to come off as a domineering, egotistical, and selfish control freak, someone who would take and take and take without giving anything back in return. In Rodimus's one intimate encounter with Optimus Prime and Sentinel, Sentinel had seemed almost submissive, though, deferring to her directions. Though then with Optimus, Sentinel had been more focused on her pleasure and making sure she came first, as he was now with Rodimus. Where was the self-centred unbridled greed?  
  
"S-stop," Rodimus Prime croaked, though he did not really want Sentinel Magnus to stop. He just wanted to collapse in Sentinel's arms and let Sentinel do as he would because everything he was doing felt so slagging good.  
  
Sentinel Magnus tilted his head and frowned, though he stopped immediately. He inquired, concerned, "Was that too rough on your wheel wells?"  
  
A little clarity returned to Rodimus Prime, and he tried to sort himself out and figure out why in the blazes he had just begged Sentinel to stop something that felt so very good. He rubbed his optics blearily and then waved a hand, correcting, "No, no! It was good. It was _great_. I just..." He cycled a few blinks with his optics and became aware of the aching tightness between his legs. "I think I would have come just from the tactile stimulation in not too long if you hadn't let up."  
  
"You don't like coming?" Sentinel deadpanned.  
  
"I like coming," Rodimus Prime said immediately. "I like it very much. I don't have the stamina you or Optimus do, though, I think. I can go a few rounds before I'm spent, but I'd like to go them with you, not alone - unless _you_ don't like coming?" He arched an optical ridge.  
  
"I like coming," Sentinel said, leering at Rodimus, touching him with nothing but his gaze but so thoroughly that Rodimus shuddered anyway. He held up his hands and asked, "May I?"  
  
Rodimus Prime nodded, and Sentinel Magnus took him in his arms and carried him from the lounge to the berth room. They could have just made love then and there in the lounge. Perhaps it was a sign of Sentinel Magnus's orderly mind that he wanted everything in its proper place. Maybe he just _felt like_ going at it on the berth right then. Rodimus just knew he liked snuggling against him in his arms, which might have been the reason, too, Sentinel showing off his strength for Rodimus. So Rodimus Prime made a show of languidly stretching himself out on the berth to show off right back, watching Sentinel watch him.  
  
"Now, is there anything in particular you'd -" Sentinel started to say.  
  
Rodimus laid a finger across his lips, gave him a little smile, and said, "Just be yourself? I'm sure I'll find something I like."  
  
"Be myself," Sentinel Magnus snorted, and he sat down on the edge of the berth near Rodimus Prime, one hand idly propping himself up. "I spend a whole lot of time trying to be anything but. Doesn't get me all that far, but it's better than the alternative."  
  
"I want _you_ ," Rodimus Prime insisted, tugging on Sentinel's hand.  
  
"Really?" Sentinel asked, half-turning to sling one leg up onto the berth, the other still hanging loosely over the side.  
  
"Oh yes," Rodimus assured, looking up at Sentinel with shining optics. Behind all of that bluster, he could see that Sentinel had some bitter insecurity. Rodimus Prime found he could not blame Sentinel Magnus. Garnering nothing but hatred from the public no matter what he did would wear any bot down. Rodimus counted himself lucky to have a chance to love Sentinel instead. The bot needed it.  
  
"And just _how_ do you want me?" Sentinel murmured lowly, levering his body over so that he had a hand on either side of Rodimus.  
  
Rodimus Prime started to reply, thinking about the positions he liked best, and then he caught himself before he could. He smacked the side of his helmet and exclaimed, "Just screw me, for AllSpark's sake!" He wanted Sentinel, so badly that he was trembling, but he wanted to see what Sentinel was really like, not some act he was putting on to impress a new lover.  
  
"I can do that," Sentinel Magnus replied, lips quirked with amusement. Then he rocked back on his knees and put his mouth down to Rodimus's port.  
  
The sudden flush of heat that Rodimus Prime felt made him bend his head back and moan. His fingers twitched, and he marshalled himself to twist around Sentinel Magnus with the sweet friction of body against body, and he put _his_ mouth between Sentinel's legs. Rodimus nuzzled Sentinel there, willing him to open, even as Sentinel's clever tongue-tip flicked inside of him. Just laying back and letting Sentinel do all the work would have been the easiest thing on Cybertron, and yet, doing nothing would have driven Rodimus Prime crazy. He wanted action. He wanted to be doing something even as he was being done to.  
  
Sentinel Magnus's pelvic armour retracted with a series of clicks, and Rodimus Prime tasted his port, just barely moistened already and impeccably clean, something like cold and crystals that felt inexplicably foreign on his tongue but not unpleasant. He did not worry about Sentinel's probe. With Rodimus around, Sentinel would have no trouble at all getting it up, or he was stone blind. Rodimus Prime licked at Sentinel more, quite determined to drive Sentinel as mad with lust as Rodimus felt, and when Rodimus really and truly set a goal, he had never failed to achieve it, though he might falter along the way.  
  
A low, rumbling growl from Sentinel Magnus's engine told Rodimus Prime he had won. Sentinel rolled off of Rodimus and turned back around to climb atop him again, his probe out and stiff, marked with the same funny orange arrows his forearms had. As the bot with flames on most his own probes, Rodimus was hardly in a position to laugh, but he snickered, anyway. Sentinel's optics flickered, and he bit his lip and asked, concerned, "Wait, are you size 5 or 4? I don't want to break anything."  
  
Rodimus Prime groaned and slapped his own face. He really, really wanted Sentinel Magnus to stop worrying, quit the endless fussing, throw him down on the berth, and just frak him senseless, and he had been so tantalisingly close right then and there! He snapped, "It's variable sized! I can fit anything from a size 2 to a size 8! You know, so you don't have to _stop_ in the middle and throw everything off by asking?"  
  
Sentinel looked like he could have had more to say about Rodimus's decidedly non-standard equipment when he must have finally realised that he had a drop dead gorgeous bot begging him to just stick it in already. He did, and Rodimus moaned sensuously, his whole body arching beneath Sentinel's. That cunning tongue of Sentinel's had already found some of the most sensitive areas of Rodimus's port, and now his probe revisited them. Rodimus moved his own legs back, spreading them wider to give Sentinel better access. Sentinel put his hands there and stroked Rodimus's thighs knee to groin, forcing Rodimus's cooling fan to labour just to keep up with how slagging hot he felt.  
  
He pulled his legs all the way back, crossing his ankles behind his head. Extreme manoeuvrability and agility on the battlefield was not _only_ good on the battlefield. Rodimus thrilled with wicked satisfaction at the way Sentinel's optics widened as Rodimus drew back. Sentinel Magnus blurted, "AllSpark. You are _amazing_."  
  
Rodimus Prime smirked and settled himself back on the berth, having laid himself completely open. Now, he just needed to see what Sentinel Magnus would do, given that perfectly tempting opportunity.  
  
Apparently, what he would do was methodically determine exactly what turned Rodimus on and mercilessly exploit those buttons until Rodimus came not once but twice.  
  
Rodimus Prime did not complain.  
  
Sentinel Magnus got his own sometime before Rodimus had really sorted himself back out after the second. Clearing that happy, warm afterglow out of his head was difficult, and Rodimus was not entirely inclined to even bother trying. Only a nagging thought in the back of his head made him persist at it. He stretched himself out, blinking, and then snuggled against his lover, basking in his warmth and strength, the sound of his powerful engine; the way their electromagnetic fields lazily intertwined. Rodimus licked his lips, as if the words might come out more easily if he did. Taking a partner to a port orgasm was a bit tricky in the first place, especially when the temptation was there just to seek one's own pleasure without any concern for one's lover. Taking a partner to a port orgasm during the first coupling was even more complicated due to the lack of knowledge of one's partner's body, though Rodimus was vainly proud of his own prowess in the area. Coming not once but twice the very first time he lay with Sentinel made Rodimus Prime giddy with desire to do it again, right that moment. He could not, though, because Sentinel's probe would surely need a rest, so Rodimus reflected on the unlikelihood of the situation instead. He idly reached around to play with Sentinel's port a bit, partially to distract him, and asked, "Got me off twice, huh?"  
  
"I'd have gone for three, but I'd like you to still be able to walk tomorrow, you know?" Sentinel Magnus teased back, smirking. He gave Rodimus a thorough kiss.  
  
That little boast right there explained it, Rodimus Prime thought. Making sure his lover was deliriously happy was a point of _pride_ for Sentinel Magnus, then. There was the ego Rodimus had been expecting, just not how he had been expecting it. Pleasing his lover would certainly be more beneficial for his image than the alternative, too, if anything ever happened to leak to the media. A sex tape of Sentinel Magnus being a considerate, thoughtful, and _talented_ if thoroughly vanilla lover would be so boring as to not even be worthy of reporting, while one of him reaming a partner without a care for his partner's pleasure would be exactly the kind of bad press he did not need.  
  
So Sentinel Magnus would make his lovers happy, and making his lovers happy would stroke his ego and ensure that said lovers had no nasty bedroom complaints to use against him. That was why Sentinel Magnus had acted almost submissive around Optimus Prime; she was clearly a bot who wanted to be in charge of any given _situation_ she found herself in, even if she did not want to _rule_ the Commonwealth. Rodimus Prime grinned, because he could do a whole lot worse than picking a lover who wanted to make him delirious with delight.  
  
He idly worked another finger into Sentinel's port and cupped his other hand around that tight little behind. Sentinel had some nervous tension there, but he was even wetter now, and there was no bite of dentata teeth at Rodimus's fingers to discourage him away. In fact, Sentinel tilted his hips just so to give Rodimus better access and asked, "You want a go?"  
  
"I think you need it," Rodimus Prime replied back cockily. "Get all of this tension out of your system."  
  
Sentinel Magnus snorted, "You'd have your reasons to be uneasy if you were me. On my desk?"  
  
"I promise I don't have a death laser built into any of my probes," Rodimus Prime jibed back, rolling his optics. He rose and followed Sentinel to the other room, where Sentinel half-sat on the desk, balancing on the edge. His legs were open and his probe was safely retracted and out of the way, his hands on either side of him, grasping the edge of the table. Rodimus went down on his knees and ducked his head between Sentinel's legs to lavish his port with oral attention. Sentinel had impressive stamina, though not quite enough to match Optimus, Rodimus suspected. Rodimus did not, so he would have to do what he always did and cheat.  
  
"You don't have to - " Sentinel started to say.  
  
"I'd like to," Rodimus said firmly, looking up at him, and resolutely returned to licking Sentinel's port. Sentinel squirmed and shifted a bit, as if trying to disguise discomfort. Rodimus Prime pulled out a link cable and pried at Sentinel's arm.  
  
Sentinel batted his hand away and assured, "I'm fine."  
  
"I don't want fine. I want howling in ecstasy," Rodimus Prime said and tapped Sentinel's arm again. Grudgingly, Sentinel opened his arm and let Rodimus Prime tap his port datafeed, which would let Rodimus be sure what he was doing felt good for Sentinel, physically at least. He still acted reluctant, so the issue had to be mental. Rodimus Prime experimented, trying different things with his lips, tongue, and fingers, until he was quite sure that Sentinel should have come already.  
  
Impulsively, Rodimus Prime grabbed one of Sentinel Magnus's larger hands and put it over his own, fingers to fingers as Rodimus stroked him, and he carefully watched Sentinel for his response. Now _that_ had Sentinel's motor running! Rodimus Prime grinned to himself. So there was Sentinel's control freak side. Just sitting back and letting someone pleasure him must have been difficult for Sentinel, neatly explaining why he had spent so much time determining what really turned on Rodimus. If Sentinel was the one giving Rodimus pleasure, he was in control of the situation. Now, even if Sentinel Magnus was in a more passive role, he wanted to be doing _something_. That idea felt familiar to Rodimus, though he was certain their reasonings were different. Rodimus Prime just went stir crazy when he was doing nothing. No wonder Sentinel wanted to sit, almost upright on his desk, his seat of power, rather than lie down wholly beneath Rodimus on a berth. Sitting the way he was would also let him have reasonable control of the angle of penetration by rolling his hips up or down when Rodimus did take him, and he would be able to push back, too.  
  
Rodimus Prime decided that the time for that was now. Sentinel Magnus was clearly a size 5. Rodimus had a lot of different size 5 probes, aside from that low-friction one he had used with Optimus. He selected one covered with ridges and whorls that had another surprise inside, latched it on, capped it with a firewall for protection, stood, and leaned into Sentinel. Sentinel's apprehensive tightness was a guilty pleasure, but it was a pleasure all the same, the way he twitched and contracted so deliciously around Rodimus's probe. Sentinel whimpered and put a hand on Rodimus's chest. Rodimus kissed him, finding it hard to take it slowly. He wanted to plunge as deep as he could, as hard as he could, and as _fast_ as he could into that hot tightness.  
  
His selfish desires were why was why he had played dirty by teasing Sentinel into near-coming before he took him, so it would only take a few strokes to push him over that edge. Sentinel Magnus grabbed Rodimus's hips, fingers clenching tightly, and called out, "Oh, Rrr- _Rodimus_ Prime!"  
  
Rodimus Prime knew he did not have the stamina to hear that beautiful sound a second time if all he was doing was pumping Sentinel. That was why, with a thought, he activated the vibration units in his probe.

* * *

  
Rodimus Prime awoke curled against Sentinel Magnus's side, back in his berth, feeling extremely satisfied. His chronometer chirped at him from his HUD, and he ignored it, nuzzling his lover instead. Sentinel put away the datapad he had been examining and fondly kissed Rodimus on the side of the helm. Then he asked quietly, "Did you enjoy yourself?"  
  
"Oh, slag yes!" Rodimus Prime agreed easily, and he climbed onto Sentinel's lap. Sentinel probably wanted that assurance, seemingly a tad insecure under that façade of bravado he put on for the world, but Rodimus was not lying. He had slept with better lovers, but not many, and he had not been able to pry at them about politics, watch a race, and snog in a nearly deserted theatre during  The Wreckers and the Raiders of the Last AllSpark with any of them. None of them had ever come with him to the Tomb of the Unknown Guardsman, either. Rodimus wiggled and prompted, "What about you, love?"  
  
"Absolutely wonderful - love?" Sentinel Magnus stuttered and stared at Rodimus as if he was poleaxed.  
  
"I love you," Rodimus Prime said, resting his cheek against Sentinel's chest. "It's all right if you don't back. Yet." He smirked confidently. "Just give me some time. You will." Transformers were creatures of punctuated equilibrium. In general, they could spend millions of years doing the same old thing over and over again and be perfectly content, but the very next day, the whole world could shatter and change drastically, before assuming a new equilibrium. It was true in war. They had two millions years of peace with eight million years of war before it, give or take. It was true in love. When they fell, they fell hard and fast and stayed that way for a very, very long time, if they were wired for commitment even in the slightest, unless something punctured that equilibrium of affection. They lived like geological epochs and could fall in love in the span of days.  
  
"It's not that I don't," Sentinel started to hedge, his optics glassy and flat. "It's complicated. I mean, Optimus Prime and I, I'm pretty sure we do," his voice wavered, "we've just... never discussed it, and I think she'll kill me if I said that to you first. I... wanted to tell her, but she interrupted me, anyway..." He winced and pinched the bridge of his noise, obviously pained.  
  
Rodimus sat stock straight up and said without thinking, "You've never told her? You've been together _how long_?"  
  
"I was going to get to it!" Sentinel Magnus said defensively. He gave Rodimus a shove off his lap, crossed his arms, and looked away. He added, quieter and bitter, "She's never said it, anyway. Do you... uhm... love her, too?"  
  
"Oh yes," Rodimus Prime murmured, his optics dimming as he thought of her, so Pit-bent on a better tomorrow, so strong, and so lovely.  
  
"Have you... told her?" Sentinel asked softly, trepidation making his voice waver.  
  
"If I have, you're going to be upset, aren't you?" Rodimus Prime observed, shaking his head, "But no. Not yet. Wanted it to be a nice surprise for the next time I see her."  
  
"I have that long, then," Sentinel Magnus muttered and relaxed a fraction. Then he offered brightly, "Want me to shine you before I see you off?"  
  
Rodimus Prime looked down at the blue streaks all over his red armour and laughed.

* * *

  
Team Athenia had made no secret of their lack of love for Sentinel Magnus. Rodimus Prime was not entirely surprised when Brawn bellowed and rushed Sentinel Magnus with a brutal tackle that could shake a building off its foundation.  
  
Brawn fell.  
  
That part was more surprising, at least for Brawn. Sentinel Magnus had Brawn on his knees, hands behind his back, his stance wary but loose, ready to move. His optics were on Kup, looking to the next potential threat already. A Magnus was simply expected to be a master of hand-to-hand as a matter of course. The public liked to assume that Sentinel was deficient in the area. Looking at the way Sentinel moved, Rodimus Prime thought that was a leaking stupid assumption. Did they not remember what Sentinel Magnus had done to Praetorian, bare-handed? Sentinel half turned, minimising his cross-section, and offered Brawn a hand up. He said blandly, "Looks like you tripped, soldier. Better have your medic-bot check the traction on your feet."  
  
"Hnph. Lucky slagger," Brawn snorted and stalked off to the ramp.  
  
Sentinel's gaze moved from Kup to Red Alert to Hot Shot, daring them to make a move. Rodimus Prime sighed, exasperated, and yanked Sentinel in for a kiss before there was a chance for any more nonsense to unfold.  
  
Hot Shot made a face and complained, "Gross!"


	5. Chapter 5

Perhaps a stellar cycle, a Cybertronian year, into his tour of duty, space bridge 687-030 was as dull as dull could be. It usually was. Of course, the most interesting thing that had ever happened there was Team Athenia getting their skidplates kicked every which way by Team Chaar. A repeat of 'interesting' was not necessarily something that Rodimus Prime wanted, but maybe another Rock Lord attack or even another strike from the Predators might not be so bad, if only it would break the tedium.  
  
He was just off a watch shift watching nothing in particular. The thought that Hot Shot would now be bored silly in his place was not a comfort. Hot Shot tended to do things that made Red Alert exceptionally upset when he was bored. Rodimus Prime sighed as the doors closed behind him on the small Autobot compound near the space bridge. He was Prime, so he had his own room, unlike the others, who had to share a barracks.  
  
Having his own room had its benefits. He leaned back against a wall and opened his inguinal armour. He let his default probe tumble out into his hand and stroked it absently. Rodimus Prime stared off at the far wall and tried to think of nothing in particular. Unbidden, thoughts came, anyway. Sometimes, he daydreamed about Springer, sometimes Blurr...  
  
Now, he daydreamed about Optimus and Sentinel. In his mind's optic, Optimus had him up against the wall, Sentinel behind him. Her hands were on his spoiler, and he did not mind, because he had his probe in her port. In reality, he just left one hand on his probe and moved the other back to finger his own port, imagining Sentinel's probe there, pistoning inside him.  
  
Rodimus Prime heard a chime from his door and bit back a cry. He quickly wiped off his hand and covered his armour back up in the practised away of a young, virile soldier who had no desire to be caught in the act. He answered the door and saw Kup looking rather haggard. Kup placed a hand on his shoulder and said grimly, "Lad, you need to have a look outside."  
  
Rodimus Prime rolled his optics, followed Kup, and said, "Oh, what now? If it's another Rock Lord - " He stared up at the stars and said numbly, "They're different." They had, in fact, been replaced by one distant green sun.  
  
"Uh huh," Kup agreed.  
  
"Either something's disguising the sky or the whole asteroid just moved and we didn't notice a thing," Rodimus Prime decided quickly. "We need to get word back to central command immediately and find out what."  
  
Red Alert emerged from the compound and reported dully, "Word's not going through. I think we _have_ been moved. A sudden shift in alignment would account for transmitter failure... and why the bridge isn't working."  
  
"Then we focus on finding out who did this and how. Red Alert, you see if you can get anything out of the base sensors. Cross-reference the new constellations with the star charts and see what you can get. Get that bridge back up. Kup, wake up Brawn and take him out on patrol spinwise. I'll go antispinwise. Hot Shot will stay right where he is on watch," Rodimus Prime directed.  
  
"Hnn. It'll be a while a'fore anyone who knows anything knows we're gone," Kup rumbled. "They'll miss our daily report, sure, but it'll take three consecutive misses before they take it seriously enough to pass it up the chain of command. A far off outpost like this, they ain't gonna stickle much on getting everything in on time."  
  
Rodimus Prime laughed as a realisation hit him, and he explained, "Actually... it might be sooner than that. I write Sentinel and Optimus every day, you know? Sentinel's enough of a freak for details that he'll notice if he doesn't have a reply. Of course, he'll probably have a paranoid snit and think I dumped him, but he'll notice."

* * *

  
When Optimus Prime did not receive her customary letter from Rodimus Prime, she hardly thought much of it. They were both busy. When Sentinel Magnus sent her a panicky letter asking if Rodimus had said anything to her, she told him not to worry about it.  
  
She did not expect him to listen to her, and as fate would have it, he did not.

* * *

  
"Let me see if I have this straight," Sentinel Magnus growled, pacing in the Intel office with his hands behind his back. "You cannot raise space bridge 687-030 _at all_?" He arched an optical ridge balefully at Cliffjumper Prime, who remained unruffled.  
  
"Could just be a space storm interfering with the transmission. Those happen sometimes," Cliffjumper Prime said. "Protocol would indicate we wait two stellar cycles before committing resources to investigate."  
  
"Hng," Sentinel Magnus gritted out, twitching, and he reminded, "A space storm wouldn't knock out the bridge itself. We should just be able to go there, even if a message isn't working."  
  
"I... can't explain that," Cliffjumper Prime admitted.  
  
"You don't consider a downed space bridge to be a threat to the security of the Commonwealth as a whole?" Sentinel Magnus demanded, one optic spasming rather madly.  
  
"I think, with all due respect, that your judgement is impaired in this matter," Cliffjumper Prime said calmly, "and I know that you have a Council meeting. You're late, sir."

* * *

  
Sentinel Magnus paid more attention to the Council meeting than most of the other members thought he did, which was to say that he actually paid any attention at all. Mostly, he poked at his datapad, hoping for an update in his inbox. He struggled to keep focus on what that pompous obsolete old bot, Levitacus, was nattering on about now. Levitacus was not as bad as Alpha Trion but only because Alpha Trion set the standard for windbags who made Sentinel want to strangle himself.  
  
"...a Council appearance on Com would be a great boost to morale," Levitacus finished and turned his cunning optics on Sentinel, who felt rather like a just-protoformed student caught out by his teacher-bot, "Do you not agree?"  
  
Sentinel Magnus pulled up a map, trying to remember where Com even was, which turned out to be the skidplate-frakking end of nowhere, quite near the Magnokor Asteroid Belt. His fuel pump skipped a stroke. Space bridge 687-030 was in the Magnokor Asteroid Belt. He agreed, " _Ye_ ess. We should. We should send someone there right now. I'll go. I'll take the Twins! They could use the exercise." He stood and walked out, ignoring the gapes and stares of the rest of the Council.

* * *

  
Jazz had told Sentinel, in all seriousness, that he ought to speak to the _Steelhaven_ every now and then, that the ship needed someone's reassurance since Ultra Magnus had passed on to the AllSpark. Sentinel had laughed in Jazz's face and told him that his processors must be melting.  
  
Then he did it, because the request being stupid did not negate its seriousness. As soon as the Twins were settled, Sentinel Magnus gave the arm of his chair a pat and muttered, "Just a nice, routine trip out to Com. Of course, we'll have to take the long way around to avoid Garo - not that Garo would worry you, huh? Bet you could take on a Doomsday-class Decepticon dreadnought and completely school it."  
  
Jetstorm gave him a puzzled look and asked, "Uhm, Sentinel Magnus, sir? You are doing that thing again, where you are not speaking to the ship?"  
  
"Yes, Jetstorm," Sentinel Magnus said crossly, leaning back in his command chair, "I'm not speaking to the ship again."  
  
"Just so I am understanding, sir," Jetstorm replied cheerily.

* * *

  
Rodimus Prime was being hunted. He first became suspicious when Hot Shot did not check in when Rodimus ordered him to report over the radio, as he was doing routinely ever since the asteroid had moved. He told Red Alert to check on Hot Shot and warned everyone else to be wary. Then she did not report in, then Kup and Brawn. None of it was sudden. How many days had it been, now? Two days, going on three, he thought. Perhaps the third day might bring help.  
  
For now, as far as he knew, he was alone, and he was being chased by a shadow. He found signs of track, here and there, but nothing distinct. He swore it looked like his own, even in places he knew he had never drove or stepped.  
  
Now, he checked on the space bridge itself, not liking how out in the open it left him. Rodimus Prime had no luck. The space bridge stayed dead and silent. He had to try. By now he knew that Red Alert was right. The alignment was off, but going anywhere was better than staying here where his team had vanished, leaving him the last bot. If he could just leave, he might be able to find help.  
  
Rodimus Prime transformed and drove off, zigging and zagging a path to make use of as much cover as he could, before he skidded to a halt at the compound. He saw tyre tracks. They were his own. He knew he had not driven that way. A cold shiver rolled down his roof out to his spoiler tips, and he wondered if he was going mad.

* * *

  
"Feh, I will be full of holes before the day is done," Jetfire proclaimed moodily, as he followed his Magnus around the largest city of Com, which would not have even counted as a suburb compared to Iacon.  
  
"The atmosphere's not that bad," Sentinel Magnus said mildly, a smile plastered on his face. Com had just finished a new amphitheatre and wanted to show it off and prove to the core worlds that Com was just as worldly as any of them. So there Sentinel Magnus was to _ooh_ and _ahh_ politely and assure the Comian Autobots that they had done a fantastic job with their construction efforts. He could have just sent a junior Council member like Neo. He should have just sent a junior Council member like Neo. Instead he was here, because as soon as he was done flattering the Comians, he could sneak off in the _Steelhaven_ to check on space bridge 687-030, which was, as Cliffjumper told him, quite irrational and a waste of his valuable time.  
  
"But this place, it is boring. I shall be full of the bore holes," Jetfire moaned, dragging his feet. "These Comians, they are looking at me like a monster looks back at them."  
  
Jetstorm, who had been dispatched to check on the local communications station, radioed in, //Terribly sorry, Sentinel Magnus, sir. The beaming transmitter is not raising space bridge 687-030. No communications risen from there in days! Very peculiar, the tech-bots are thinking.//  
  
//Hnph. Check the Com space bridge and then the Science Guild. If there was a space storm in the Magnokor Asteroid Belt, their satellites ought to be able to resolve it,// Sentinel Magnus ordered. Then he reassured Jetfire, "They don't know you yet! They just think you look like the Decepticons that live over on Garo and raid Com when they're feeling uppity. We'll show them wrong."  
  
//Aye aye, Sentinel Magnus, sir!// Jetstorm answered. In the distance, Sentinel could hear a sonic boom, and he winced. Eagerness and speed were not quantities that the Twins lacked.  
  
"Pah! If the badness-bots on Garo make trouble for Comian Autobots, why we not bring trouble back to Garo? Cannot be hard," Jetfire fairly spat, and he briefly blazed.  
  
Sentinel Magnus snapped, "Don't do that in public. The catching on fire. We just need to smile and wave while this planet's Major says a speech about the amphitheatre, and there'll be a reception, and then we'll go."  
  
"Is only what I was built to be doing," Jetfire sulked, hands on his hips. "All this diplomacy and not enough kicking of badness skidplates! You have been none of the fun since the office of Magnus took you."  
  
"Jetfire." Sentinel Magnus looked at him sternly. "I have _never_ been any of the fun."  
  
"True," Jetfire admitted, "Less fun than zero."

* * *

  
After three days and no word, Optimus Prime reluctantly started to share Sentinel Magnus's worries. Rodimus Prime was young, much younger than either of them, and he had a reckless streak that reminded her of someone she used to know, but she did not think he was outright irresponsible. If Sentinel Magnus was right and a space bridge had just outright disappeared with no contact, the Commonwealth did indeed have a security issue.  
  
Optimus Prime was not irresponsible either, and she was in up to her hands in swamp muck on Hydrus IV, because that was the best way to sneak into the mod smugglers' hidden base. Once she had broken the backstrut of their operation, she might just have some time to look into other matters.  
  
She hoped Bumblebee was in position.

* * *

  
Two purple energy bolts whizzed past Rodimus Prime's head. He threw himself under a jagged ledge and then, almost on a whim, took a look at the impact marks the bolts had made on the dusty rock. His optics widened. He knew impact patterns. Enemy blasters were not homogeneous, and the mark could say a great deal about what made it. The marks were not bolt-marks at all, and he would know. They were arrow-marks.  
  
Decepticons very rarely used arrows. They preferred more conventional modern firearms in general. Could an Autobot be hunting him? The different factions in the Council did not always see optic-to-optic. He was aware that his current choice of lovers made him a target, but he also did not care. They were worth it to him.  
  
Above him, the stars changed, and in that one distracted moment, a dark shadow knocked Rodimus down into the dust. He flipped himself over, one-handed, and saw the face of his opponent. He saw himself.  
  
The dark Rodimus yanked Rodimus's helmet off and flung it away, only to catch a hard kick to his midsection. A thousand thoughts vied for Rodimus Prime's attention, most along the lines of disbelief that he had a Decepticon clone, but he forced those condiersations down and focused on one thing: survival. The trade and counter-trade of blows told Rodimus that this clone was slagging good at hand-to-hand.  
  
So he disengaged. He had to have the advantage of knowing this AllSpark-forsaken asteroid better than the invader. Rodimus Prime made it as far as the compound, but the dark Rodimus was just as fast as he was, hot on his heels, and shot out the closing mechanism on the doors before they could lock behind Rodimus. The clone chucked his own helmet after Rodimus and knocked it hard into his ankle, which was just enough to make him falter for an instant.  
  
An instant was all it took for the Decepticon to lay Rodimus Prime down on his face. He jabbed something into the back of Rodimus Prime's unprotected head. It went in like a shard of supercooled nitrogen and then burned like plasma. Rodimus Prime saw stars, writhing masses of stars tangled in the fatal embrace of other stars, stars exploding behind stars and filling his vision with ashes and embers, while his every wire felt ready to self-immolate.  
  
The dark Rodimus's voice was his own, self-satisfied and slightly amused, as he explained, "I'm told that a mind leech is excruciating on the receiving end. Your memories will be mine, and then, your _life_ will be mine, Autobot."


	6. Chapter 6

Space bridge 687-030 was exactly where it was supposed to be when Sentinel Magnus took the _Steelhaven_ looking for it. As Jetstorm said, "Is piece of stupid rock. Other pieces of rocks probably not even want it around. There is nowhere for it to be going!"  
  
"Should be responding to hails. Isn't," Jetfire corrected, looking up from the communications gear.  
  
"Right, well, set her down," Sentinel Magnus directed, waving a hand, though he always wondered if perhaps, 'set _him_ down,' would be more accurate, "Let's take a little look."  
  
The asteroid seemed barren and dead. One of the doors of the compound had been shot open. Sentinel drew his shield to be better safe than sorry. Sparkride and Horsepower were doubtless around somewhere, but he also doubted they would be of any use to him.  
  
The tableau just inside transfixed him. One Rodimus was straddling another Rodimus, who was face down on the floor. Sentinel tilted his head to one side, nudged Jetfire and Jetstorm with his elbows, and asked, sotto voce, "Are you seeing that, too?" _Or am I just have a particularly kinky delusion? Because I could be all right with that, if this is what madness is like._  
  
Jetfire and Jetstorm looked at each other, and then, Jetstorm reported, "Yes, Sentinel Magnus, sir. Your one boyfriend is wrestling your other boyfriend, only not your boyfriend who is really a girlfriend."  
  
"He's a Decepticon clone!" the Rodimus atop said fiercely, as he grappled with the Rodimus below.  
  
"You're the clone," the other Rodimus spat and threw his assailant off of him and into the wall.  
  
Sentinel Magnus spread his hands out wide and suggested, "All this talk of... clones. Can't we just say you got hit with a duplication ray instead? I'm sure Optimus won't mind if I bring two of you home."  
  
"No!" shouted the one peeling himself away from the wall, but the one rising from the floor flashed a cocky smile and said, "Okay."  
  
"Cuff him," Sentinel Magnus ordered Jetstorm and Jetfire, pointing to the one against the wall.  
  
As the Twins put stasis cuffs around his wrists, that Rodimus sputtered and fumed, "You're making a mistake!"  
  
"Usually am," Sentinel Magnus agreed cheerily and approached the Rodimus on the floor. He offered him a hand up and, once he had it, reversed his grip, popped open that Rodimus's arm, and jammed into a diagnostic stick. That Rodimus winced, and Sentinel winced in sympathy as the diagnostic stick flashed and lit up, hitting preliminary results early. "Oooh, _someone_ 's hit you with a mind leech. I hear that's excruciating."  
  
"It is," the Rodimus he was holding mumbled tiredly and leaned against him. His helmet wobbled a bit, as if it was only on loosely.  
  
"Now who could that _someone_ be?" Sentinel Magnus asked, though it was not really a question, and he looked pointedly over at the other Rodimus.  
  
"Don't you remember when you knocked me over at the Hydrax Plateau Memorial Hospital? When we met?" pleaded the other Rodimus.  
  
"What I remember is a leaking-spark Autobot so open-minded you could drive a semi through his head," Sentinel Magnus said, without malice, "You know, the kind who would be okay with a foursome with his Decepticon clone? Whereas I seem to recall that Decepticons generally have more pride than that." His optics narrowed.  
  
"I'm not really okay with a foursome with my evil clone," the Rodimus leaning against him muttered.  
  
"Shh, you can ruin my fantasies later," Sentinel murmured and patted him on the head, straightening his loose helmet until it clicked into place.  
  
"It doesn't matter," the other Rodimus said, glaring, "You're all going to die, anyway."  
  
"The only dying that will be done today is dyeing you a different colour, I am thinking," Jetfire opined. "It is being very confusing, having two red sports cars."  
  
"Also very ugly," Jetstorm added and stuck out his tongue, "all that red." Jetfire, who preferred fiery colours, elbowed him.  
  
"He used an electronic paint job," the Rodimus leaning against him wheezed.  
  
Sentinel Magnus did not think his Rodimus was entirely well, and he felt a surge of anger at the Decepticon who had done it, all joking aside. The things he wanted to do to said Decepticon involved drain cleaner and a funnel. What he needed right now was not petty vengeance, however. He pinched the bridge of his nose directed, "Rodimus, I'm going to need a sitrep from you. But we still haven't verified for sure that you're you, and I'm... biased on the matter. So, Jetfire, Jetstorm? You're going to debrief Rodimus, and I am going to have a little chat with the other Rodimus in the stockade."

* * *

  
Rodimus Prime was not exactly sure what he wanted: a rest to defragment his violated processors, some painkillers for that optical migraine that kept stabbing knives of pure light behind his optics, a stiff drink to clear his head, just Sentinel to lean against some more...? What he did not want was the Twins trying to debrief him, but that was what he had.  
  
"You are always copping badness," Jetstorm said crossly. "This time, copping badness will be me."  
  
"Fine!" Jetfire snapped back. "I will be goodness cop so hard your thrusters will burn."  
  
"You don't... need to good cop/bad cop me," Rodimus Prime managed to croak, sitting himself down against the wall. He curled around himself and seriously considered orally venting his fuel tank all over the floor. It might have helped his nausea. "Three solar cycles ago, the stars changed, we lost contact with central command, and the spacebridge stopped working. Red Alert thought maybe the asteroid had been moved. She tried to figure out where, but she wasn't able to find anything in the star charts before she..." Rodimus's optics dimmed. "Before she vanished. They all did." He shut his optics off entirely, and still the pain did not go away. Knowing where his team was and what had happened to them would have made it hurt less, he thought. Of course, he could not do them any good with his optics off. He forced them back on. If there were threats yet to come, he would see them.  
  
Jetfire scooted down next to Rodimus and asked him for the exact time and order of events, surprisingly professional and clever in his line of questions. Then again, Jetfire and Jetstorm were the youngest Autobots ever to be inducted into the Elite Guard. There had to be more to them than just their wings. Jetstorm stood something like a watch while Jetfire questioned Rodimus. Eventually, Jetfire shook his head, looked up at Jetstorm, and said lowly, "Is not good, not good at all, this moving of places."  
  
"Vanishing of bots no good, either," Jetstorm reminded, and Rodimus was inclined to agree with him.  
  
Jetfire's optics narrowed, and he said simply, "Bots vanish; bots maybe die. Is no good, but happens. Asteroids moving in blink of optical sensor? That changes game from mecha-soccer to _slaughter ball_."  
  
Rodimus Prime trembled and suddenly saw, without looking at them, Sentinel Magnus's influence on the two younger Autobots. Rodimus's poor lost team mattered very little in the grand scheme of things, even if they meant everything to him. The tactical, strategic, and logistical consequences of a technology that could teleport asteroids out of known space and back, however, were staggering. What was important to him was not what was important to the Commonwealth as a whole.  
  
"Is not safe for Sentinel Magnus to stay here," Jetstorm concluded. "Even if the asteroid was staying in proper place, we are not knowing why bots are missing."  
  
"Leaving space bridge 687-030 undefended is foolishness. Should call in a temporary team to see to security and investigate whole matter," Jetfire added.  
  
"I want to stay here. I can help," Rodimus Prime said firmly. His team was his responsibility. He had to do what he could for them. "I know this asteroid."  
  
"I am thinking that Intel will want account of the first hand, yes?" Jetstorm said quietly, "And that your shape right now is something like a wreck."  
  
"And that you are compromising with the enemy," Jetfire finished.  
  
"Compromised _by_ ," Rodimus Prime corrected irritably. He idly looked at the diagnostic stick stuck in his arm. It was still processing, checking him for infections and intrusions, beyond the immediate one it had found. It flashed at him again.

* * *

  
Meanwhile, Sentinel Magnus reflected that torture did not actually work, no matter how many studies the Science Guild cared to run where innocent civilians were doped with syk and worse without their knowledge or consent. Of course, when Sentinel Magnus wanted to cut the Science Guild's funding, bots raged that he was anti-intellectualist and that he did not respect Perceptor's fine work and patriotism during the Great War. No, he just wanted Perceptor to quit it with the creepy as frak slag. If he could have found an excuse to throw Perceptor in Trypticon Prison or even G-9, he would have done it by now, but the Councillor's connections went deep, and evidence tended to vanish around him.  
  
Looking at the suspected Decepticon clone, however, Sentinel Magnus privately wished that torture did indeed work so he would have an excuse to use it. He had never been a pleasant bot and was not about to start now. As a rule, Sentinel did not take it well when Decepticons or anyone or anything meddled with that which was his, be it the Commonwealth or its bots. Rodimus Prime was _his_. Instead, he grabbed a little beauty of a device and pessimistically wondered just how many innocents were maimed during its research and development phase. Sentinel Magnus held it up and said flatly, "If you stole Rodimus's memories, you know what this does."  
  
The captive said nothing and only glared haughtily. Sentinel yanked one of his panels open, letting it clatter loudly on the quiet stockade floor, and in no way gently jammed in the device. "Subspace stripper. Neat little thing. Does what it sounds like."  
  
He gingerly stepped around the pile of incriminating evidence that dumped out of the subspace pocket of what was almost certainly a Decepticon clone. There was a small thing on the floor that looked something like a magma slug. Sentinel made a face, kicked it into the air, and grasped at the thing with the tips of his fingers. Disgusted, he muttered, "And this would be the mind leech."  
  
The mind leech had sharp crystal teeth on one end for penetrating into a mind and a segmented metal body that ended in a fibre optic tail with a plug for easy downloads. Perceptor would quite possibly literally kill for an intact mind leech to reverse engineer, and as such, Sentinel Magnus had no intention of the Decepticon technology ever ending up anywhere near Perceptor's hands. Somehow, it would end up conveniently broken before Sentinel saw the end of this. He mused aloud, "You aren't a documented Decepticon. You do not, legally speaking, exist. I could do _anything_ to you. And that's ignoring who I am!" Optimus Prime would be so disappointed with him for abusing his power, and the thought gave him pause but only a pause. "I could, for instance, put this freakish little mind leech in _your_ pretty little head and see exactly what you Decepticons are planning."  
  
"I took your boytoy's mind. It's mine now. You'd be violating the privacy of a Commonwealth citizen to get that information," the clone observed, smug and self-satisfied. Even bound in stasis-cuffs and thrown down on the stockade floor, he did not have the air of a beaten foe. His optics dimmed and his head tilted back as his voice dropped, "So _very_ violated."  
  
Anger surged in Sentinel Magnus, hot and seething, but he knew that had to be what the Decepticon wanted, something to trip him up and force him to make a mistake. He forced himself to stay cold and reasoned, "I'll just ask Rodimus to take a look, then. He already knows what's there."  
  
The Decepticon stayed silent, apparently having no biting, snide remark about to that idea. Sentinel Magnus radioed to the Twins and ordered Jetstorm to return to the _Steelhaven_ to radio for that relief team and put in a report back to central. He did not trust the communications equipment here, all things considered. Jetfire was to bring Rodimus Prime to him. Sentinel Magnus did not like splitting the Twins and particularly did not like putting Jetfire alone with Rodimus Prime when he was compromised, but with Sparkride and Horsepower being as useless as usual, he did not have many options.  
  
The thought occurred to him that perhaps Sparkride and Horsepower were worse than useless, and he scowled briefly but darkly. When Rodimus Prime arrived, he was leaning heavily against Jetfire in a way that seemed to make Jetfire slightly uncomfortable. Sentinel pursed his lips and took Rodimus off Jetfire's hands. The Prime fairly moulded himself to Sentinel's body as soon as they touched. The attention was flattering, but Sentinel muttered, "Not now, Rodimus," and then explained more loudly what it was he wanted Rodimus to do.  
  
Rodimus simply smiled and said readily, "Sure!" his optics narrowed and glittering.  
  
Sentinel Magnus was briefly taken aback. He had expected, at the very least, a debate about the breach of ethics being suggested here. He decided, however, not to look a gift starship in the engine block and let Rodimus go to town with the mind leech on his duplicate, who seemed oddly placid now. Sentinel looked away, feeling awkward and empty. When the Twins followed his lead and looked away, too, he only felt worse.

* * *

  
All of the mod smugglers were stasis cuffed, stripped of anything dangerous in their subspace pockets, and prepped for transport. Omega Supreme was ready to go. Still, Optimus Prime felt there was something remaining to address, as she checked over to the pre-flight lists. She cleared her throat and said mildly, "Bumblebee. You were late."  
  
"Only a little," Bumblebee said dismissively, "and it didn't matter anyway! We got the bad guys. Same deal."  
  
"I got a load of swamp sludge dumped on my head, thanks to you," Ironhide growled. A full decontamination later, and he still stank.  
  
"Unexpected bonuses," Bumblebee agreed, smirking a little smirk.  
  
"Highly basic swamp sludge," Ratchet corrected, grumpy as ever, "Ironhide was lucky his armour held it off."  
  
"Not to interrupt or anything," Jazz said, doing exactly what he said he was not, "but Sentinel's team apparently went and checked out the deal on space bridge 687-030. They need a back-up team, stat. Some real half-torqued stuff goin' on there if you know what I mean."  
  
Optimus regarded Jazz sidelong. The ninja-bot had a way of intervening into conversations to defuse them, but she really did need to have a word with Bumblebee about her continued irresponsibility. Bumblebee was not as bad as she had been, but she needed to be better. They all did. Optimus gave Jazz a look to make it clear that this conversation was not over and then called up what Jazz was talking about on screen. She observed, "We're the closet not otherwise assigned team. With Omega's transwarp, we could be there in minutes."  
  
"We need to get those smugglers back to Cybertron for holding," Ratchet growled, "and you back to Cybertron, too. If Sentinel Magnus had stuck his big chin in danger again, we don't need to endanger you any more than we have to. If you both fell..."  
  
Optimus Prime saw where Ratchet was going with that. If something were to happen to Sentinel Magnus, she would be the provisional Magnus of the Commonwealth until a new one was officially sworn in - and that new one would probably be her. Taken that way, there was no sense in endangering herself. She also knew well that Ratchet did not like Sentinel Magnus. He had reasons enough, and they were good reasons. Were something unfortunate to happen to Sentinel Magnus, upset was definitely not what Ratchet would be. Of course, Sentinel _Prime_ and Ultra Magnus had travelled together on missions all the time, a fact that Ratchet was conveniently ignoring. Optimus Prime let out a frustrated sigh. She thought they had made real progress on all their differences! Optimus said slowly, "As Elite Guard Commander, the stability of the Commonwealth is indeed my concern... and that is exactly why we're going." It was not that she wanted to check on Rodimus, anyway. It was not. It was duty. "Jazz, comm it in that we'll be there."

* * *

  
Rodimus Prime greeted Optimus Prime by tilting her head down, one hand at the back of her head and the other at the small of her back, and giving her a very passionate kiss. Sentinel Magnus's optics were narrowed, and his hands twitched, but he had always been a bit prudish and repressed. Rodimus was much more open about his feelings, and he seemed to take a mischievous delight in tweaking Sentinel near to apoplexy.  
  
So when Sentinel radioed her, //I think there's something wrong with Rodimus Prime,// she was inclined to brush it off on Sentinel's normal levels of jealous inadequacy.  
  
Optimus said dismissively, //He feels fine to me,// and she wrapped her arms around the other Prime quite pointedly. She wondered if she could make Sentinel's radiator overheat by running her hands all over Rodimus's gorgeous body and then dismissed the idea as both childish and unprofessional in front of her troops.  
  
//No, look, he told me he was going to say... something to you the next time he saw you,// Sentinel insisted, crossing his arms over his broad chest.  
  
//Something,// Optimus repeated dryly. //I'm sure he'll get to it eventually.// Then she added aloud, "You must be rattled, Rodimus. Don't worry. We'll get to the bottom of this." She looked back at her team. Ironhide was glaring at Bumblebee, who still looked triumphant. Ratchet was glaring at Sentinel Magnus. Only Jazz looked poised to accomplish anything particularly useful. She could have kicked the lot of them.  
  
"So that's Omega Supreme," Rodimus Prime said slowly, looking over her shoulder at her ship.  
  
"Ye- Rodimus, you've seen my ship before," Optimus said, startled and blinking. She took a step away from him and looked at him warily.  
  
His expression twisted into something bitter that made him look older than his years, and he let out a rattling laugh. "Didn't we all. At the Battle of Iacon."  
  
"Boy, you weren't even a schematic loaded into a protoform foundry at the Battle of Iacon," Ratchet bristled.  
  
"Not a schematic, no," Rodimus Prime agreed, and something about his optics looked fevered. Optimus thought she had seen it before somewhere, not the fever and passion of when they had coupled in the shower, but a deep sickness she had seen before in someone else, "But a code. Mmm. Omega Supreme. The _Steelhaven_. Sentinel Magnus and his prototype flying Autobots. Optimus Prime and her Elite Guard. This chance is simply too good to pass up."  
  
Above him, the stars changed.

* * *

  
Rodimus Prime was a prisoner in his own body, which was currently being used against someone he loved very dearly. His body was graceful and nimble and leapt away from the fray, transforming before it hit the ground. The Autobots around him were confused, which the one possessing him seemed to feel ought to be the default state for Autobots, aside from dead. Dead was nice, too, though not as much fun.  
  
He alternately raged and wept tears that could not come, because he did not even have that much control of his own body left. Words could not express how profoundly violated he felt, violated and helpless all at the same time. There he wheeled around, mocking the stunned Autobots, and he transformed and drew his bow to put two arrows through Sentinel Magnus. Rodimus Prime had never seen the Magnus Hammer in action, not really, holos were not the same, but the one who held him had and feared its electric might.  
  
Sentinel Magnus had to die first. He was slow with his shield and yet too fast for the liking of Rodimus's captor. The arrow meant for his spark was cleanly blocked. The arrow meant for his head went through the side of his neck with a horrible feedback screech. Sentinel staggered and would not be saying much of anything, but he was alive, and that made his captor purse his lips with displeasure.  
  
Over the radio, a harsh female voice berated him, //You capricious fool! You move too quickly. This is not a part of the plan.//  
  
//Oh, Strika darling, you never did know how to go with the flow. I'm giving you the Autobot flagship, the last living Omega Sentinel, upper Autobot Chain of Command, _and_ some of their finest soldiers all in a tidy little energon cube,// his captor purred in Rodimus's own voice. //Just get Blackout out here to kill that ship before it has a chance to transform.//  
  
//Sideways,// Strika said flatly. //Call me darling again and I kill you twice.//  
  
Strika darling? Blackout? Sideways? Rodimus Prime realised in a flash the extent of the Decepticon plan. His clone had been meant to replace him and get in close enough to kill Sentinel Magnus, Optimus Prime, and likely whatever other highly ranked Autobots he could find, but he was meant to do it on Cybertron. If his clone failed, Sideways possessing the true Rodimus Prime was the back-up plan, but he was only the back-up plan for obvious reasons. Sideways had not yet broken into Rodimus's mind, the way the clone had done with the mind leech, or he would have been a more convincing actor. Maybe he could not do it at all. Sideways seemed unaware of Rodimus's continued presence entirely, and just perhaps, Rodimus might be able to do something with that.  
  
Hope sprang inside of him. Sideways was moving earlier than Strika wanted. If the Decepticons were at odds with each other, they would not hold together as well if they were all of one mind. The Autobots might be able to do something about them yet. Rodimus's military history courses had taught him that Sideways was sometimes called the General of Chaos and for good reason: he was a master manipulator, but he had no discipline and no patience. He did not work with others so much as he used them and discarded them, which bred distrust and poor morale. He was easily distracted by whims.  
  
Sideways could also digitally possess his enemies, as Rodimus had discovered first-hand. That one ability offset many of his flaws.  
  
Sentinel Magnus had extended his shield into a complete force-bubble around his team and Optimus's, thwarting Sideways's bow sniping. Sideways regarded the dome coolly, his whole bearing cocky, one hand on Rodimus's hip. Then, he threw his head back, bayed out laughter, and transformed, driving right up Omega Supreme's open ramp. He made it inside before the Autobots could warn Omega Supreme to close the doors.  
  
Rodimus Prime struggled to try to figure out what he _could_ do, instead of wrestling futilely with what he could not. He had no access to anything output: no movement, no radio, no subspace access, nothing. Maybe he had access to input? Most Transformers left their input alone; the default settings were good enough. Some, who were gifted with unusual sensors, might turn them on or off as needed, but that was again a sort of output. Rodimus Prime, who was something of a tuner, though nowhere near how some Velocitronian expatriates were, took a moment to consider his input streams. If he threw up some new filters on the data, he might just be able to make Sideways effectively hallucinate.  
  
Optimus Prime bounded in after him. She flicked out one of her grapplers, but Sideways ably piloted his body out of the way. Rodimus threw up a filter then and saw the massive form of Blackout fill his vision. Startled, Sideways sputtered, "Blackout? You're not supposed to be in here! You're supposed to be outside... but oh, why not? You can kill the Omega Sentinel just as well from the inside, can't you?" He cackled.  
  
Then Optimus Prime hit Rodimus Prime in the back of the head, very hard, and neither Sideways nor Rodimus Prime saw anything at all.


	7. Chapter 7

Optimus Prime gently gathered Rodimus up in a firefighter's carry and called out to the others from the door, "Ratchet, Rodimus needs a full medical exam. I'm thinking it's Sideways again. Sentinel? I have reason to believe that Blackout's coming."  
  
"How in the fresh Pit did you get Rodimus infected with Sideways?" Ratchet demanded of Sentinel, quite irate.   
  
//What? Ratchet, why is it _my_ fault Rodimus came down with Sideways - and Optimus, did you say _Blackout?_ // Sentinel Magnus protested over the radio, given that his voice box was blown by that arrow, and then his optics went wide as hubcaps. //Uhm. Uhm. We need to get Omega Supreme transformed.//   
  
Optimus Prime winced and reminded, "Ratchet is Omega Supreme's handler, and we need his medical expertise to examine Rodimus."   
  
"Omega Supreme can handle himself well enough on his own," Ratchet grunted, "Step out of there and let him transform."   
  
//I'm thinking... we can't leave Rodimus's clone without a guard for long. He knows too much, and he's too dangerous. After all this, I don't think that compound's secure. Jetfire, I want you to move him to the _Steelhaven_ 's stockade. Jetstorm, check the comms and check the spacebridge, but I don't think we're going to like what we find there. Ratchet can use the _Steelhaven_ 's medical ward to look after Rodimus, and the rest of us can get the _Steelhaven_ flying,// Sentinel Magnus ordered. //We'll have a better chance against Blackout if we can move.//   
  
Ratchet looked at Optimus. Optimus sighed and agreed, "I think that's for the best. You heard him, bots!"

 

* * *

  
Blackout came with company: Oil Slick, Blot, Mindwipe, Sky-Byte, a small figure that was possibly Scalpel, and Strika, the General of Destruction. Scrambling inside the Steelhaven , Ratchet and Ironhide took Rodimus to medical. Ironhide said lowly to Ratchet, voice choked, "He was my first boss, you know?" He faded out of audioshot as they hurried down the hallway.   
  
//Right. Jazz, you remember the _Steelhaven_ 's controls? Show Optimus and Bumblebee. Shouldn't be much different than Omega Supreme... just upgraded,// Sentinel Magnus directed, making a curt clicking noise at the end.   
  
"What?" Bumblebee demanded.   
  
//You see Blackout, Mindwipe, and Sky-Byte out there? You know, _heavy Decepticon fliers_? I want Jetfire and Jetstorm out there to keep them off of us and off of Omega Supreme - Blackout in specific. He's killed more Omega Sentinels than anyone. We aren't going to let him get the last one,// Sentinel Magnus said firmly, //Now get your skidplate into a gunnery chair before I throw you there.//   
  
Bumblebee's optics cycled one blink, and she moved. Optimus Prime frowned and asked, "You think the Twins stand a chance?"   
  
Jetfire looked to her and nearly growled, "I would rather be chancing than standing."   
  
Jetstorm called, "And I am at the hatch already. You lose!" He jumped outside, Jetfire hot on his heels.   
  
//Ratchet will need Ironhide on hand if Rodimus is still... not Rodimus when he wakes up, I am pretty sure that Horsepower and Sparkride are outright traitors - so watch out for them - and someone still needs to watch the stockade. So that's me,// Sentinel Magnus said grimly, not answering her question.   
  
A monitor showed Omega Supreme engaged in combat with the attacking Decepticons. They were certainly big by Autobot standards, but much of the problem was in hitting them. The other problem was in Blackout's special power - he could simply knock out Transformers in a radius around him. That more, than anything else, made what the Twins were trying to do dangerous. Jetfire sent a flaming blast at Mindwipe to dazzle him before he could get a good look at the Twins, and Jetstorm called up a wall of wind to block out one of Oil Slick's noxious cocktails. Bumblebee and Jazz, at gunnery stations on the _Steelhaven_ , managed to peg Strika on the ground and Sky-Byte in the air - and it didn't kill them.   
  
"Sentinel Magnus. You know this ship better than I do. I'll guard the prisoner. You stay on the bridge," Optimus Prime said quietly, searching Sentinel's face for some betrayal of what he was thinking.   
  
Outside, Blackout loosed his EMP wave. Omega Supreme stumbled but did not succumb, but stumbling was bad enough. If Omega Supreme fell over, he would have a hard time getting back on his feet. The Twins fell out of the air and barely recovered before they hit the ground. The _Steelhaven_ shuddered, and the lights flickered. Sentinel stared morosely at the picture of Jetstorm standing over Jetfire's unmoving body.   
  
"Sentinel Magnus," she said again. "You're not going to the stockade, are you? You're going to do something _stupid_."   
  
He turned to her and radioed quietly, //I love you.//   
  
He had never actually said it, though after a few years, she figured he meant it. Optimus Prime stared at him and then groaned, "Correction. You are going to do something _idiotic_."   
  
//That isn't what you're supposed to say back!// Sentinel protested, and he moved off into the _Steelhaven_ 's hallways.   
  
"We both get out of this alive, and I'll tell you what you want to hear," Optimus shot back hotly, following him through the twists and turns. The _Steelhaven'_ s layout was similar to Omega Supreme's, and she tried to think where he might be going. To a hatch? "Don't tell me you're thinking about going out there with the Magnus Hammer."   
  
//I'm not,// Sentinel said curtly, and there was a sulking pain in his voice. She had hurt him with what she had not said. //I wonder. If it would have been smarter just to make a run for it. Omega Supreme and the _Steelhaven_ both.//   
  
Bumblebee's voice cut over the intercom, "Uh, you know, maybe we should have wondered how Strika's creeps got _here_? Because I've got an answer, and you're not going to like it. Uh. Doomsday-class warship."   
  
//I suppose that settles that,// Sentinel Magnus sighed, more wry than defeated, //Look, Omega Supreme's not doing that badly out there. It's just that Blackout staggers him whenever he tries to do anything, so he ends up missing.//   
  
"That's how it went down in the history vids," Optimus Prime agreed grimly.   
  
//And the _Steelhaven_ is going to be knocked out of the air soon if this keeps up,// Sentinel Magnus continued. He punched in a security code for a door that did not look like it was used often, and it opened with a hiss of changing air pressures. The room inside smelled... dead, for lack of a better word. //If the Twins could have taken out Blackout first thing, Omega Supreme could have cleaned up Strika's crew easily, and the _Steelhaven_ could have handled that Doomsday up there. But... well...// His voice faltered, and he stepped inside.   
  
The room reminded her of Omega Supreme's pilot room when he transformed into robot mode. Her optics narrowed, and she stated, because it was not a question, "The _Steelhaven_ was an Omega Sentinel."   
  
//Uh huh. With added Vanguard Boosters for a power upgrade. He's beautiful,// Sentinel said absently. He knelt down at a panel, frowning. He pulled the Magnus Hammer out of subspace and set it aside. //We could have fought outside of the ships.//   
  
Optimus Prime winced. "I think that would have gotten everyone killed. More quickly than this seems to be doing. Sentinel... _what_ are you doing?"   
  
//The _Steelhaven_ is slow and clunky when manoeuvring in an atmosphere, no offense,// and he didn't seem to be talking to her there, //That's why Omega Supreme transformed. Ship mode's better for space warfare; robot mode for atmospheric, when it comes to Omega Sentinels.// Sentinel heaved open the panel in front of him and the faint, coruscating light of a weak but massive spark shone out.   
  
"The _Steelhaven_ 's still alive," Optimus Prime said, the words tumbling out without real thought, half aghast and half in reverent awe. She stared at that wispy pale blue ball.   
  
//Comatose,// Sentinel Magnus explained, //I'm going to wake him up.//

 

* * *

  
Rodimus Prime woke and sat up with a scream because Blackout was right in front of him. Then he remembered that he had pasted a holo of Blackout into his visual feeds and felt foolish. Then he realised that he had sat up and he could _move_ and Sideways was not in his head and he crowed for sheer joy.   
  
Ratchet turned to Ironhide and asked, "He usually like that?"   
  
Ironhide considered for a long moment and then said, "Yuh. He's always been pretty enthusiastic." He peered at Rodimus and then clapped him on the shoulder. "Good to have you back."   
  
"Better to _be_ back," Rodimus Prime said immediately, revelling in the simple joy of simply _being_ and being _himself._ He was on a ship. It suddenly rocked as if hit by the worst of turbulence, and the lights flickered and went out. Before Rodimus's optics could adjust to the dark, red emergency lights hummed to life.   
  
"You got hit by Sideways, kid, but you're clean now. He's a nasty infection," Ratchet grunted.   
  
"Sideways... there's a plot to kill Sentinel Magnus and Optimus Prime - probably others, too. I have to warn them!" Rodimus Prime said quickly, and he slung his legs over the side of the medical berth.   
  
The ship rocked again, and Ratchet said, "The Decepticons went with Plan B. No plot. Just killing. Let's go down to the bridge and see."   
  
They did. Bumblebee and Jazz had managed to put Sky-Byte out of commission. Mindwipe was hurting badly but still up and moving. Jetstorm was holding off Oil Slick and a tiny skittering figure, using a whirlwind around himself, standing protectively over his brother's body. However, Strika, Blot, and, worst of all, Blackout were still operational, and the _Steelhaven_ had taken heavy damages, as it looked like Omega Supreme had, too. Ratchet's jaw clenched at what he saw.   
  
"Why haven't we run?" Rodimus Prime asked, as he assessed just how bad the situation was. The _Steelhaven_ was not a steady firing platform, and the Decepticons were comparatively small targets for so large a vessel. The _Steelhaven_ was meant for ship to ship combat in space, not atmospheric combat. Blackout's EMPs were making their flight unstable and making Omega Supreme even more slow and ponderous than he otherwise would be. The Twins, the most mobile Autobot forces on the battlefield, were the worst affected by Blackout, Jetstorm nearly swooning whenever a wave hit him and Jetfire apparently out entirely, if not worse.   
  
"Doomsday-class warship in orbit," Bumblebee reported gloomily.   
  
"If we leave, Omega Supreme's dead," Ratchet said, staring at one screen in particular. "And that's assuming this bucket of bolts could even handle the warship up there."   
  
"Hey," Jazz said softly. "This is a fine ride."   
  
Not just Omega Supreme, Rodimus Prime thought. His team was down there, and sifting through memories of his clone, who thought of himself as Dark Rodimus, had told him what had happened to them. Dark Rodimus had simply hunted them down, knocked them into stasis, and bound them, hiding them away in one of the asteroid's caverns. With Mindwipe around, convincing Rodimus's team that nothing was wrong and to accept Dark Rodimus as the true Rodimus would have been a cinch. The plan to replace Rodimus with Dark Rodimus had gone up in cinders, however, and so the Decepticons' use for Rodimus's team had ended. If the Autobots left now, the sensible thing for the Decepticons to do would be to kill Rodimus's team to the last bot.   
  
And the Autobots still had no idea where they were.   
  
Rodimus Prime would not sit back and let his team be slaughtered. If not for his choice of lovers, they never would have been in this danger, anyway. He stalked over closer to the hatch. He popped open an emergency supplies bulkhead and pulled out a parachute. Rodimus Prime deftly strapped it on, ignoring Ironhide's protests. He just asked coolly, "Where are Sentinel Magnus and Optimus Prime?"   
  
"Went off to guard the prisoner," Jazz answered distractedly, far more focused on gunnery as he tried to fend off Mindwipe's nimble aerial assault of the _Steelhaven_.   
  
"What!?" Rodimus Prime demanded, fuming. Did they have _no_ sense of timing or, well, sense? He could have kicked them. He kicked the hatch instead and ordered, fairly spitting, "Ironhide, go get them and tell them to do something _useful._ Ratchet, assist Jazz and Bumblebee. And no, this isn't my slagging ship or crew, but this _is_ **my** outpost."   
  
He leapt outside.

 

* * *

  
Sentinel Magnus could deal, however ineptly, with Optimus Prime not returning his sentiments. The problem was that she did not understand that he did not need her protection and he could make his own decisions. She had always babied him. Sometimes, often, he welcomed it. Relying on Optimus was easy, too easy.   
  
Optimus would not understand his choice now, as he opened his torso plating and folded the panels aside. He did ask, //I don't suppose your Matrix has any love for poor old Epsilon Supreme, here?//   
  
She shook her head, so that was that. What the AllSpark would and would not give life to was a mystery that Sentinel had decided he had better not pursue. Down that path lay only pain and madness, to judge from Blackarachnia and Megatron's examples. Optimus demanded, wary, "How are you going to wake him?"   
  
//He knows me. Jazz told me to talk to him. He's been lonely since Ultra Magnus, his handler, died.// Sentinel Magnus unlatched some more of his torso, opening himself up. //I'm going to feed him my spark.//   
  
He moved before Optimus Prime could stop him, just leaning forward enough to plunge the lurid, bright blue of his own spark into the faded mass of Epsilon Supreme's very being. It did not hurt. He just felt cold and tired, and then, even that feeling started to fade. There was nothing. What hurt was that Optimus Prime would not understand. She would think that he was simply being _stupid_ , and that was how it would go down in the history books, he was sure. A Magnus trading his life for a handful of Autobots was an act of unthinkable idiocy.   
  
Optimus Prime did not think Sentinel Magnus capable of self-sacrifice, he was sure. That was something only better Autobots than he would attempt. Autobots like her. Stupid. She would think that. His body slumped farther forward, drained, and he barely noticed it.   
  
He did not think it was stupid, a small but coherent part of him thought. Two Omega Sentinels could handle this problem. Blackout might stagger them, but enough firepower would be thrown around that even the misses would hurt. They would have the mobility they needed on the asteroid to crush the remaining Decepticons, and then, as starships, they could handle that Doomsday up there. These Autobots would get _out_ of whatever this Pit-damned place was and warn the Commonwealth that... that...   
  
There was something else there, something important he was supposed to remember, but all of his feeling was gone.

 

* * *

  
Rodimus Prime plummeted down. The asteroid's atmosphere was very thin, but he did not want to catch Decepticon attention by popping his parachute too soon. He guided his fall with his whole body, twisting to line up his vectors just so. He was falling straight towards Blackout's quivering ornithopter mechanism. If he hit one of the long flight vanes, he _might_ break it, but he would be cut to pieces. In one fluid motion, at the last moment, Rodimus Prime pulled his parachute, drew his bow, and put two arrows into the swashplate, the central hub of the whole ornithopter mechanism, the one part that absolutely could not fail. It cracked but held, military-tough.   
  
Then he collided right into the swashplate, feet first, and the whole mechanism gave way. Blackout fell out from underneath Rodimus Prime, and he tugged at his parachute to open it wider, slowing his descent to let Blackout crash underneath him. Strika put a massive hole through his parachute, bellowing fury. Not wanting to get tangled in the parachute _and_ hit the ground hard, he settled on releasing the parachute and just hitting the ground hard.   
  
He transformed and struck the asteroid near Blackout's collapsed form, his shock absorbers and undercarriage killing him, and a fine cloud of dust rose around him. He flicked on his fluid and wipers for a better view. If Blackout was not down, Rodimus Prime might as well stay and fight, because he was liable to die no matter what he did. If Blackout was down, he was going to plain get out of here as fast as his wheels could take him because the others could handle the rest of the Decepticons with Blackout gone. There was brave and there was stupid.   
  
Blackout's crashed wreck twitched. The massive Decepticon started to transform. Perhaps there was brave and stupid at the same time. Rodimus Prime transformed, too, his cog complaining bitterly at him about the strain. Seeing Strika lining up another shot on him, he half-turned, kicking up another dust cloud, and drew on Blackout. He fired and put one arrow through each optic.   
  
Still the Decepticon did not go down. He roared in pain, clutching his face, and he brought his foot down for another EMP stomp.   
  
Rodimus Prime went down, the feeling unpleasantly familiar. His consciousness wavered, and weary words broke into his head, //Is that being you or the badness bot who is looking like you?//   
  
He clutched at the words, clawing tight to his coherency even as blackness encroached around the edges of his vision. He radioed back, voice tight with pain, //Me. What we need to do is - _sheeyagh!_ //   
  
As he tried to get up, Strika hit him, putting a massive wound through his torso. Jetstorm said with perfect sincerity, //I am not thinking that is a very good plan.//   
  
//No,// Rodimus Prime said, leaking out on the asteroid's surface, //Can you blow Oil Slick's... whatever at Blackout?// It was a risk. The Decepticons might be immune to Oil Slick's newest cocktail. Then again, if history was any teacher, they probably were not. Oil Slick tended to be indiscriminate with his creations.   
  
//But you are there! And Omega Supreme. And if the whirlwind is not whirling, there is no barrier to keep brother safe,// Jetstorm said miserably.   
  
Rodimus Prime's hand, wobbly from loss of energon, reached behind and found the pack on his back. There would be a backup parachute in there, one he had neglected to use on account of being too near the ground when he would have needed it. Laboriously, Rodimus pulled his knees under his chest and put his feet flat to the ground. Then he started to push himself up into a crouch with his fingertips. //I can get out of the way. Omega Supreme's bigger. He'll last longer than Blackout, and if Blackout is _out_ , Omega Supreme can take to the air without worrying about an EMP knocking him out of the sky.// The plan had nothing for Jetfire. He was sorry, but that was all he had. //Do it now. Please.//   
  
A black plague wind came howling at Blackout, and by way of splash damage, Rodimus Prime and Omega Supreme, who was father off behind. Rodimus Prime threw himself into a high leap backwards and pulled that back-up parachute, which jerked him hard and lofted him away from the worst of the chemical warfare. His foot, touched by the inky gas, crumbled away to nothing. Rodimus Prime ignored it and drew his bow. Blackout was going to pieces but not quickly enough. There was another EMP coming on. Before gravity could send Rodimus crashing back down, he put one pair of arrows into Blackout's rapidly decaying chest and another pair into his spark casing.   
  
Then he hit the dirt.


	8. Chapter 8

Something nudged at him, warm and insistent and forgiving, but more insistent than forgiving. It demanded, _**BE.**_  
  
So he was. There was warmth, unconditional and brilliant, and knowing warmth was a sort of feeling. He struggled to remember what he had been trying to do. Transform! Someone needed to transform. Not him. Around him, something transformed, slow and ponderous but terrible in its majesty, and he was not sure how he knew, because he could not feel it. He simply knew.   
  
_**YOU ARE WITH ME,**_ thundered the only thing in the world that was not self. _**I KNOW.** _   
  
The self that was not his own self knew, and so he knew? He did not question the logic there, if there was any.   
  
_**YOU ARE NOT ULTRA MAGNUS. DEFINE YOURSELF AND BE.** _  
  
There was a flood of things, like the thought that he ought to be sorry about not being Ultra Magnus, except he really was not, he sort of hated the bot, only it was more complicated than that. Really, he was a very petty, venal bot to be worried about all that right now - he was a bot. That was something. He was a bot, and he had greater concerns. Who was he?   
  
_Sentinel Magnus._ His thoughts stuttered, like a cough. _I think I'm dying._ Abruptly, his self snapped into a small, wretched ball, tightly curled, tiny compared to the massiveness of the not-self that surrounded and enclosed him.   
  
_**NO. I WILL NOT LOSE ANOTHER,**_ rumbled the other. If only from the inside, Sentinel Magnus now had the perspective to see that the other could only be Epsilon Supreme. For a third time, Epsilon Supreme evoked, _**BE.** _  
  
Sentinel Magnus was. He was aware that his every system was crashing from impending spark failure, but he was. He was sprawled on Epsilon Supreme's floor in a singularly uncomfortable position. Optimus Prime was standing over him, saying something he could not hear. He thought, _Energon._   
  
A panel opened on the wall, revealing one of the _Steelhaven_ 's energon conduits, the very fuel of Epsilon Supreme's tenuous life. Optimus Prime moved, taking up Sentinel's body and pressing his lips down on a side pipe, which she cranked open. His vision faded out and in, pushing down wiper fluid, and he thought, suddenly as terrified as he ever had been, _No. I can't. That's you._   
  
His body drank, anyway. Everything around him was moving, and as Epsilon Supreme transformed, everyone inside him was deposited into the little control room in his centre. There was the hard contact of massive feet against the asteroid, and again, Sentinel Magnus did not feel it so much as he simply knew. Someone else had done the feeling for him. Epsilon Supreme, wonderful and monstrous, had. He tried to spread himself out more thinly, to know more, but Epsilon Supreme rebuked him and cast him back to his self. _**YOU NEED ALL OF YOU THAT YOU HAVE LEFT.**_ Then, after a moment that could have been forever, he added, _**I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.** _  
  
Sentinel weakly questioned back, unsure if his frail grasp on lucidity would allow him to explain anything. Epsilon let him see the room through his internal cameras, despite his earlier warnings. Jazz, Bumblebee, and Ironhide were in the process of securing Sparkride and Horsepower. Ratchet and Optimus Prime were crouched next to his body.   
  
_**YOU DID AS I WAS PROGRAMMED TO DO. SACRIFICE.** _  
  
Epsilon was his audios, too, and he heard a faint snatch of Optimus's words, "-stupid." He murmured hazily to Epsilon, _That._   
  
_**NO.**_

 

* * *

  
Rodimus Prime pushed himself up a second time, arms groaning, watching as Omega Supreme unsteadily took to the air. Omega Supreme had taken a serious pounding from the Decepticons, the EMPs might have blown out some of his internal workings, and there were black traceries slowly spreading across his body, even as they now spread across Rodimus Prime's.   
  
Blackout was down. Rodimus Prime looked at him again. Blackout was dead. The crash, the chemical warfare, two arrow volleys aimed at his spark, and his other miscellaneous damages had done him in. Rodimus Prime realised that he had just killed one of his own kind for the first time, and he felt sick. Transformers lived a very long time. Killing a Transformer did not steal from him perhaps a century, nothing much in the grand scheme of things. Killing a Transformer robbed from him forever. The AllSpark was nothing to fear, but neither was it anything to look forward to. It simply was. There was nothing beyond death better than life. Life was its own reward and punishment in one. That was why their wars ground on so long and brutally when they started: because no side truly, deep in their sparks wanted to end the other. That was why the Autobots had exiled the Decepticons at the end of the Great War, instead of killing them all, other logistical concerns aside. There were exceptions, of course, Transformers who delighted in death, but Rodimus Prime was not one of them.   
  
Rodimus Prime stood up, limping because he was missing a foot. Strika lined up another shot on him, to finish what she had started. Then she stopped and stared. For her courtesy, Rodimus Prime put a pair of arrows into her optics. Then he turned around to look at what could give even her pause, she the General of Destruction.   
  
The _Steelhaven_ had transformed, putting a brother to Omega Supreme on the battlefield. A thoom resounded in the thin air as Oil Slick, seconds from the limp form of Jetfire, simply ceased to be.   
  
Rodimus Prime fell to his knees and broke down laughing, because it was better than crying. What else could he do?

 

* * *

  
Strika formally surrendered, which was annoying. There were certain ways Autobots had to treat surrendered prisoners. In return, there were supposed to be certain ways a surrendered prisoner would behave, but Strika was a Decepticon, and she was probably just abusing the laws of surrender to wait until the time right for her to move. Blackout was confirmed dead, his titanic corpse sandwiched into Epsilon's cargo bay. Oil Slick was assumed to be dead, given the crater left where he was standing, but Scalpel was not, his current whereabouts unknown but assumed to be somewhere on the asteroid. Jetfire had seen the tiny Decepticon moving off before Epsilon Supreme's blast immolated Oil Slick. Sky-Byte, Blot, and Mindwipe were captured.   
  
The brother Omega Sentinels made short work of the Doomsday in orbit and captured its crew, the Predators, too.   
  
They recovered Rodimus Prime's team, and between them, Red Alert and Ratchet worked out a cure for that spreading inky blackness, that chemical warfare that Oil Slick had refined and enhanced from the cybonic plague. Oil Slick apparently called it 'Reaver', if Dark Rodimus's memories were correct. Rodimus Prime would still need to spend plenty of time convalescing in the medical ward, but given that Sentinel Magnus was on the next berth over, perhaps he did not mind the view. He sighed and dimmed his optics. He needed to think about his personal life in more depth, he supposed. He loved Optimus Prime and Sentinel Magnus. He honestly did not care if loving them put him in grave personal danger. The pleasure was worth the pain. What upset and worried him was how it had nearly killed his whole team. He could not do that to his bots.   
  
Right now, however, he needed to explain to the gathered Autobots around him what he had learned from Dark Rodimus's mind. Only Jazz, guarding the prisoners, was missing. Jazz was probably 'questioning' the prisoners. Rodimus Prime kept his voice steady and pitched it to carry, "We are in the Realm of Alpha-Q. The reason why you can't find it on any star charts is that it's not, strictly speaking, a part of the universe we know. It's sort of a... parasite blister that grows underneath the reality we know, an underlay."   
  
A murmur went through the crowd, but Rodimus Prime pressed onward, "Alpha-Q was a Quintesson who left the Quintesson Pan Galactic Co-Prosperity Sphere." Among the older Autobots, mostly Kup, Ratchet, and Red Alert, there were hard looks at the mention of Quintessons. "He settled his own world, which he called Planet Q." Rodimus Prime smirked a little and wondered if even he would have enough ego to name a planet something like Planet Rodimus. "Something, Dark Rodimus doesn't exactly know what, destroyed Planet Q. Alpha-Q approached the Decepticons with a proposition. He had the means - again, Dark Rodimus doesn't know the details - to create an artificial Realm of planets and stars that would underlie reality, if the Decepticons could supply him with support for his project. The military benefit of such an underlay is that if you weaken the wall between the universe we know and the Realm... you can move very large objects sideways between reality and the Realm. That's how they moved the asteroid here. We're not just talking popping ships and troops in and out of nowhere. We're talking about planets and stars."   
  
He dimmed his optics and lay back a moment, as pain stabbed through him. Rodimus Prime girded himself and moved on, "The Decepticon plan was, in short, to replace me, ideally with Dark Rodimus, but with General Sideways possessing my body if that didn't work out. They'd invite a little investigation by cutting communications, so that the false me would be taken back to Cybertron. They'd use that to take out Sentinel Magnus, Optimus Prime, and whoever else they could of the upper Autobot Chain of Command to plunge Cybertron into chaos. Then they'd bring Cybertron to Alpha-Q's realm, where Decepticon forces waiting there could subdue the planet easily during the confusion. This would, in turn, plunge the Commonwealth into absolute turmoil. The Decepticons would take the rest of the planets they wanted and subdue them in similar fashion, confident that no Autobot reinforcements would ever be able to come to the rescue. Alpha-Q keeps the other planets of his Realm, proxies for his lost world. They win. We lose."   
  
Rodimus Prime shut his optics off entirely and paused there, waiting for the siege of questions that would come. Knowing him as she did, Red Alert caught him first before the others could speak and asked flatly, "What you speak of would require an enormous amount of energy. How was it even managed?"   
  
"Dark Rodimus is a little shaky on the specifics - the Decepticons don't tell him much. I don't think they trust him." He wondered if perhaps they could use that against Dark Rodimus somehow, maybe to convince him he would be better off as an Autobot than with the Decepticons, who used him as a disposable tool. "However, it was done through Alpha-Q, and it's maybe the most worrying part of this whole affair. For every piece of matter brought into the Realm, _more_ matter in reality is destroyed to provide the energy for it. Eventually, if enough matter was brought into the Realm, reality as we know it would cease to be entirely. That's why I called it a parasite Realm. It sucks the life out of reality. The Decepticons don't care. There's a lot of the universe that doesn't matter to them. They don't mind if it becomes fuel for their cause, and Alpha-Q is..." He shuddered. "...deranged, as near as Dark Rodimus can tell. I have the coordinates for the transition device they planted on the asteroid. We should go find it."   
  
" _We_ are doing nothing," Optimus Prime said firmly, " _I_ will lead a team to recover the transition device. You and Sentinel will stay here, in the medical ward, if Red Alert and Ratchet have to sit on you. Is that understood?"   
  
"Heh. Gotcha," Rodimus Prime said, and he rolled his head back down.   
  
"Three groups, out of those not otherwise assigned already. One to stay with the ships and the outpost, one to look for Scalpel, one to retrieve this transition device. Kup and Brawn, I want you to stay with the ships and the outpost. Keep watch. Hot Shot and Bumblebee, look for Scalpel. You're small, fast, and trained as scouts. You'll have the best chance of spotting him. Ironhide, you're with me."   
  
So they filed out, leaving behind the invalids and the medics. Jetstorm wasn't as badly off as Jetfire was, so he sat at his brother's side, holding his hand. Then Optimus Prime paused at the door and then said, "Rodimus. Sentinel said you had something to say to me?"   
  
Rodimus Prime's optics brightened, and embarrassment flushed him. How could he have forgotten? Startled, the words tumbled out quickly, "Yes. I love you."   
  
She smiled and said, "I love you, too," and then turned and headed off.   
  
Sentinel Magnus sat up with a start, causing the monitors tracking his health to spike and wail. Ratchet put a hand on his chest and pushed him back down, growling, "Don't move much. I'd be exaggerating if I said you're half dead - you're worse."   
  
Sentinel Magnus let out a choked sob and sank back down on his berth. Rodimus Prime looked at him sidelong. He wanted to comfort him somehow, but again, the thoughts of whether or not he should pursue his love any longer came to him. He pushed the thoughts aside. If he let Sentinel soak in his misery for whatever reason, he was letting someone he cared about be hurt, as surely as his team had come to grief because of him. He could not contemplate letting Sentinel be hurt if he could do something about it anymore than he could let this team suffer because of his choices. For now, Rodimus Prime would do what he could for Sentinel. He radioed him privately, //Sentinel. What's wrong?//   
  
//I don't want to talk about it,// Sentinel Magnus said stiffly.   
  
Rodimus Prime did not press him. He tried a different tactic. //What do you want to talk about?//   
  
That seemed to unbalance Sentinel, and he confided, //This is so... big. I mean, it's pretty obvious that we need to find this Alpha-Q and... destroy this Realm before it can destroy our universe.//   
  
So Sentinel wanted to talk about strategy when his pain was clearly emotional. He was such a repressed workaholic! Rodimus Prime humoured him anyway, playing The Fallen's advocate as he often did. //Do we have to? Destroy this Realm?//   
  
//Well... yes? As long as it exists, there's the chance that it might destroy matter of our universe.// There was Sentinel's usual paranoia //I mean... even just sending us back home is going to do that, isn't it? I guess we could try to salvage the planets and the green sun here, but... that'll kill planets and stars back home? Do we even know which ones? If they were dead planets and stars no one was using, that would be one thing, but if it's random or worse... we could wipe out a civilisation without even knowing it.// There was something more, one of the things that made Rodimus love Sentinel. He _could_ think and reason, if prodded hard enough, and he was a sharp knife when it came to that.   
  
//We just don't know some of these things. I think we should find out before we decide anything for certain. For all we know, we could separate the universes entirely. Or there could be a less destructive method of fuelling the transition.// Rodimus Prime shrugged.   
  
//I plan for the worst,// Sentinel Magnus said pessimistically.   
  
Rodimus Prime half-smiled, staring at the ceiling. //I hope for the best.// He looked over and asked, "Red Alert, could you move our berths a little closer? I just want to hold his hand, that's all."   
  
Red Alert looked cross, but she did. Sentinel Magnus felt cold to the touch, even his electromagnetic field weak, but he smiled faintly at Rodimus Prime, clearly appreciative of the gesture. Rodimus Prime asked, //So you... fed Epsilon Supreme your spark, huh?//   
  
//Don't you start on it now.// That faint smile became a scowl.   
  
//Oh, no. I'm not one to throw caltrops.// Rodimus Prime assured, and he squeezed Sentinel's hand gently. //I jumped out of a perfectly good ship to go pick a fight with the Decepticon who killed more Omega Sentinels than anyone. I'm just wondering, what's it like?//   
  
Sentinel sounded surprised, but he always loved a chance to talk about himself, and he did. //I... don't exactly recommend it, actually. Normally, Omega Sentinels were bonded to their handlers via command codes. Sparks didn't come into it. Ultra Magnus was Epsilon Supreme's handler, and when he died, the command codes went with him. Anyway, I like to think that if waking Epsilon Supreme up was easy, someone would have done it already.// He seemed uncertain and perhaps a little bitter on that point. //I mean, it took the power of the AllSpark to get Omega Supreme operational again, to hear Optimus tell it. She followed me, but the remnant of the AllSpark that she carries with her, her Matrix, it couldn't do anything for Epsilon. So I figured that _my_ wake/defragment routines were still operational, and I gave Epsilon Supreme my spark to wake him up. He didn't need all of it, since he wasn't actually dead. Now we're... bonded, I guess. If I push, I can see what he sees, hear what he hears, and so on. I'm pretty sure he can do the same back to me, which is... sort of a security flaw I should have thought more about.// He grimaced.   
  
//What, Epsilon spilling state secrets?// Rodimus Prime teased.   
  
//Well, actually... no.// Sentinel admitted, after some thought. //He's not very bright, but he wouldn't do anything he thinks would upset me. I'm not sure he even can. He seems to think of me as his handler now. It sort of scares me how much he adores me, when I haven't done a thing to earn it.//   
  
//You woke him out of a coma!// Rodimus sputtered. How could Sentinel think he hadn't done a thing to earn Epsilon's devotion?   
  
//But that's the thing. That doesn't matter. He'd adore his handler no matter what his handler did. That's how he's programmed, and that's wrong,// Sentinel explained dully, //The whole idea was to use those command codes to bond them to responsible, proven Autobots, to make sure they wouldn't rampage. They were given crippled decision-making capacity to better facilitate their handlers having control over them, and they were programmed for self-sacrifice, if need be. We made children, Rodimus, and we took away their free will and taught them that they were expendable. We let them die for us and then rode around in their corpses and comatose bodies. That's... horrible.//   
  
//It is,// Rodimus Prime agreed soberly. He had never heard those exact details with regards to the Omega Sentinels. The history videos would have had him believe that they knew exactly what they were getting into and were glad to give their lives. He believed Sentinel, and he felt sick, a nausea worse than the destructive blackness that Red Alert and Ratchet were scrubbing out of his systems. //What are you going to do about it?//   
  
//Aside from do everything in my power to make sure it never happens again?// Sentinel Magnus replied uncertainly. His head moved a fraction to eye Rodimus sidelong. //I don't know. I need to think about it.//   
  
Rodimus smiled a little and murmured fondly, //Good. Thinking's always good for you.//

 

* * *

  
Collecting the transition device was easy. The hard part was listening to Bumblebee and Hot Shot bicker about who had done a more awesome job in capturing Scalpel. Between the two of them, they had jammed Scalpel in a clear jar full of a translucent, glowing green gel, which Hot Shot assured anyone who would listen was 'delicious'. Optimus Prime frowned. Being stored in a jar of fuel was definitely not standard capture method for prisoners, but Scalpel was so tiny, she was not sure how they were supposed to lock him up, anyway. Stasis cuffs were too big for him.   
  
Kup and Brawn checked that they were who they said they were, and Bumblebee and Hot Shot handed Scalpel, jar and all, off to Jazz. Optimus asked him softly, "Anything useful out of the prisoners so far?"   
  
"Oh, lots of useful things... to the current situation? Not so much," Jazz said breezily, the edges of his optics crinkling with amusement. He gave the jar in his hands a speculative look. "I'll keep you updated, boss."   
  
Optimus Prime walked back to the medical ward and paused at the doorway. Rodimus Prime had his hand on Sentinel Magnus's. They looked adorable together, and she loved the way Sentinel's cool blue and black and grey looked with Rodimus's fiery red and orange and gold. Then she handed the device off to Ratchet, so that he and Red Alert could analyse how it worked. Rodimus looked delighted when he saw her, Sentinel not so much. Optimus ignored whatever petty jealous snit Sentinel was in again and asked Ratchet, "How are the patients?"   
  
"Omega Supreme's gonna be in dry-dock for a long time," Ratchet said first, sounding none too happy about it.   
  
Red Alert broke in, her voice cool, "Sentinel Magnus should make a full recovery, provided he does not overtax himself. Sparks are remarkably resilient entities. Rodimus Prime and the... Twins," she seemed as if there was something different she wished to say there, "are responding well to treatment, though their recoveries will also take time."   
  
"Epsilon?" Sentinel prompted. He sounded weak and exhausted.   
  
"Aw, why'd we have to fix his voice box, anyway?" Ratchet grumped, "The _Steelhaven_ will be fine. She'll be out of dry-dock long before Omega."   
  
"He," Sentinel corrected, annoyance shading his voice.   
  
Optimus Prime pointedly ignored the unpleasant snideness in the air and asked, "You have some time to look at the transition device, then? I can pull Jazz off guard duty and have Ironhide stand watch instead to discuss what he's learned so far with you and Red Alert, Ratchet. The sooner we can use it to take all of us home -"   
  
"I am not sure that is a good idea," Sentinel Magnus said, his voice a bit more forceful than before. He was making an obvious effort to be heard. "We don't know where in the universe that thing pulls matter to use for energy. What if we pull matter that someone was actually using?"   
  
"Considering the vastness of space, the odds of pulling matter that anyone is actually 'using' are astronomically low," Red Alert sniffed. "You forget your duty to the Commonwealth, which must be apprised of dangers immediately."   
  
"Yeah? And if this thing just happens to pull the matter from Hadeen, Cybertron's sun, and it goes nova? Forgive me for thinking that a Decepticon-built device might be booby-trapped," Sentinel Magnus snapped.   
  
"Even assuming as lossy a conversion as a two to one ratio, to move an object the size of this asteroid, any impact on our sun would be negligible," Red Alert corrected, and she and Ratchet looked over the device.   
  
"And what if it just tears a new hole in the face of Cybertron," Sentinel muttered, sinking down even lower into his berth, optics dim.   
  
"Nonsense," Red Alert said crisply. "The Decepticons want Cybertron intact."   
  
Optimus Prime looked at Sentinel thoughtfully and imagined what might happen if the source of matter was Earth, but while she loathed the catastrophic mental picture that arose, she knew such an argument would not sway one such as Red Alert, if Sentinel's entreaties about Hadeen and Cybertron had not moved her. Most Autobots were organophobic to the point that they might even cheer if something unpleasant were to happen to an organic planet, if they were not apathetic enough to ignore it entirely. Her duty to her people here was clear: take the information back as quickly as possible. Her duty to the universe as a whole was murky. Life had been simpler when she thought all there was to it was being a little cog in the great Autobot machine. She shook her head and reminded, "We have too many injured here to go hunting down Alpha-Q now. We have to take the chance and go back, because that's the only way we'll be able to do anything about all this, and doing something is better than nothing. The problem won't go away on its own."


	9. Chapter 9

They visited Rodimus Prime in the Hydrax Plateau Memorial Hospital, where they had first met him. Now, instead of a volunteer trying to cheer up the patients, he _was_ a patient. Reaver disabled the victim's self-repair systems, in addition to destroying the bonds that held metal together, crumbling it. He would be in there for a while, recovering, while a bolus dose of replacement nanites tried to integrate itself with his systems well enough to bring his massacred self-repair systems back to life. All the stillness was just about driving him nuts, so he was glad for the visit. Rodimus Prime just wondered how he was going to put it to them.   
  
Sentinel Magnus still looked tired, but his optics brightened when he saw Rodimus, and his whole bearing softened. He was genuinely happy to see Rodimus and that made Rodimus ache all the more when he thought about what he had to say to them. There was a smile on Optimus Prime's lovely lips, too, which she pressed so gently to his forehead that he felt her electromagnetic field more than the actual contact. Sentinel lightly laid a hand over his and greeted, "I'm glad to see you again."   
  
"Me too," Optimus added.   
  
Rodimus squinted at them. There was something vaguely wrong with them, though he could not put a finger on exactly what. They did not stand with each other as they had before his rescue from the Realm. They were just standing near each other, not with. Rodimus decided to call them on it, "Did you two have an argument? More so than usual?"   
  
Optimus Prime looked surprised and said immediately, "No more than usual." She peered at Rodimus, concerned and confused.   
  
"I don't know why you'd say that," Sentinel scoffed derisively, obviously ready to change the subject.   
  
The scoffing was why Rodimus pushed further. Sentinel scoffed as a reflex action when he felt defensive. "Yeah? Because you've been sulking whenever Optimus is in the room ever since... ever since you woke up Epsilon Supreme, actually."   
  
Optimus Prime looked ready to say something, but Sentinel cut her off with a definitely heated, "You're imagining things."   
  
"AllSpark, if I was imagining things, you'd have thrown me down on the floor and Optimus would be on your back," Rodimus snorted, leering a little, refusing to let Sentinel evade that easily.   
  
"Sentinel..." Optimus Prime said warningly and nudged at his shoulder, "Now that Rodimus mentions it, you have been colder and more distant than usual. I assumed you were just drained from that stunt you pulled, but..."   
  
"That is none of your business," Sentinel huffed and glared directly at Rodimus.   
  
"Mmm, if you want me to stay your lover, I think it is very much my business if my lovers are squabbling about something, but... I'm not sure that's a good idea," Rodimus Prime admitted, and he turned off his optics for a moment to rest the sensors. He could still see them, even with his optics off. Looking at them hurt, but not seeing them hurt more.   
  
"What!?" Sentinel blurted, and his hand on Rodimus's clutched unpleasantly tightly, making his fingers smart. Rodimus let out a hiss, and Sentinel withdrew as if burned.   
  
He turned his optics back on. Optimus was attentive and ready to listen. Sentinel looked crushed. Optimus's reaction was like her. Sentinel's was not. He had a committed lover. Losing his other would be a pain, yes, but he seemed unusually upset. Rodimus pursed his lips, but he had never been one to let too much thinking slow him down. "I love both of you. I want to be with you. I don't care about the dangers to myself, but my whole team could have been killed because of my choice of lovers. I can't do that to them. Yes, they agreed to risk their lives when they joined the Autobot army, but they didn't agree to... this." He eyed Sentinel. "And don't tell me I could retire. I'm not old, and I can tell any other choice of career would drive me nuts." He was, by his very nature, a protector, and he craved action. Maybe he could try law enforcement or crisis response, but those professions were no less dangerous. "And _don't_ say you could assign my team extra guards. You wouldn't do that for any other team. It's always been our way that you can date your subordinates... but only if they gain nothing from it."   
  
Sentinel sputtered, "By your logic, _no one_ should love me." He held his hands out beseechingly. Then he looked at Optimus sidelong and snapped, "I suppose the only one who does only does it because he's programmed to." He turned crisply on his heel and stalked out of the room.   
  
Optimus stared at the door, as surely stunned as if Sentinel had struck her in the back of the head. Rodimus Prime just groaned, "Have you two idiots _still_ not talked about your feelings for each other?" He wanted to put his hand against his forehead, but that might have been too much movement, so he refrained but only barely. If the lack of action did not drive him insane, Optimus and Sentinel were apparently determined to push him over the edge.   
  
"Still?" Optimus asked, her optics narrowed. She looked ready to move out the door and give chase to Sentinel, though she waited on his reply.   
  
"Before I left for my tour of duty, I told Sentinel that I loved him - and I still do, impossible as he frequently is, which is why this hurts so much." Rodimus Prime grimaced and stared at an overhead lighting fixture. "And he gave me this ridiculous spiel that neither of you had talked about that before, so I told him I was going to tell you the next time I saw you. I think that's what tipped him off that something was wrong with me - Sideways didn't know to do that."   
  
"I see," Optimus Prime said, reserved, "He's right, you know. By your logic, I shouldn't love him."   
  
"I'm not saying you're wrong," Rodimus Prime murmured. "Scrap, I'm not saying I'm _right_." Something right would not make him feel like heaving his tanks on the floor and drowning himself in the puddle. "I think it's a choice you have to make for yourself. I wish... I had seen this coming, sooner. I thought being willing to be hurt on my own was enough."   
  
Optimus placed another air-light kiss on his forehead and said nothing as she left. Rodimus Prime was alone, and he hated it, in the stifling stillness of his recovery room where nothing moved.

 

* * *

  
Optimus Prime caught up with Sentinel and pinned him to the wall in a tight embrace. She ignored the hospital orderlies and kissed him there and then. Then she put her thumb on his cheek and wrapped her hand around his helmet, taking his hand in her other. She leaned around the other side of his helm and whispered in his helm, "I do love you, I just... can we talk about this elsewhere?"   
  
Sentinel felt tense in her arms, cautious and wary, but he was warmer than before, willing to close the gap between them at least a fraction. He followed where she led him, rolling in silence back to what Optimus generally considered to be their quarters in Fortress Maximus, what she had hoped would someday soon have been Rodimus Prime's quarters, too. She understood his choice. Understanding did not do anything about the hard, tight feeling of loss in her spark, though.   
  
He started first, accusing, "When Rodimus said he loved you, you didn't have any trouble at all saying you loved him back." He circled her, optics glancing often at the door.   
  
"What I have... had with Rodimus is different than what I have with you. With Rodimus, it was very simple. We dated. We fell in love. It was as near to normal as love as it ever gets," Optimus explained, chagrined. "With you, Sentinel... erm. You pretty much embarrassed me into being your girlfriend for the publicity value, in case you forgot that part?"   
  
"I suppose you could look at it that way," Sentinel sniffed, "Though you're leaving out the part where I'll do any sex act within reason that you'd like as long as it keeps you happy and with me."   
  
"Mm. One of your rare good points," Optimus said, mouth quirked into a crooked smile. They did both push on each other in different ways that were perhaps not entirely appropriate, if Optimus was honest with herself. "I like the sex; you like the publicity. That's not really the best basis for a relationship." Optimus rubbed the back of her helmet and made a face. "So when you tell me that you love me while rushing off to get yourself killed, can you blame me for wondering if you're just... following a script?" She stepped closer to him. "And can you blame me for wanting to give you a reason to live?"   
  
Sentinel put up his hands and snorted, "Hey. I have _plenty_ of reasons to live. Pretty much the last bot who'd put his neck on the chopping block for anything, am I right? So uhm. Us. Rodimus did have a point. Unfortunately."   
  
Optimus shrugged and said, "The Elite Guard is already the most dangerous post in the Autobot army, and everyone who is there wants to be there. I can't imagine that by sleeping with you I'm putting my team in appreciably more danger than I would be otherwise."   
  
Sentinel rubbed his chin and said slyly, "So what you're saying is that I need to have Team Athenia reassigned to the second-most dangerous billet?"   
  
Optimus Prime put her hands on her hips and said flatly, "No, Sentinel Magnus. No."


	10. Chapter 10

"I am completely sure that taking Epsilon Supreme is fine, Optimus," Sentinel Magnus insisted, one arm around her waist and one on her shoulder. "I rode around in the _Steelhaven_ all the time on official Elite Guard business! Besides, he likes you. Not like that. He would never like you like that, because he knows that would upset me, and he'd never do a thing to upset me. Just, uh, he shares most of my opinions on things, when he can understand them." He dropped his voice and mumbled, "Because he has to." Sentinel still had trouble getting across just how deeply disturbed he was by Epsilon Supreme's mental crippling. Optimus understood, but she did not really _know_ , which at least spared her the true horror of the situation even as it kept her from complete understanding.  
  
"I know, I know," Optimus Prime said, looking out at the docks. "Ratchet's just concerned that Omega Supreme won't get proper repairs without him around to oversee it. Arcee's said she'll look in on the progress when she can get away from teaching, though, and that placates Ratchet some."   
  
"Does she have clearance to - never mind, don't tell me, I don't want to know," Sentinel said, waving a hand dismissively, "Ratchet. I need to talk to him, actually. Can I borrow him while you finish pre-flight checks?"   
  
Optimus Prime arched an optical ridge and looked at Sentinel like he had just asked her opinion on him reformatting into a spider mode. She said mildly, "You can try," and she pushed past him to work on those pre-flight checks.   
  
Sentinel tried to think where he would be if he was a completely cranky old medic with an unjust and ridiculous grudge against dashing and handsome snowplows. He checked the medical ward on a cunning hunch and was rewarded. Ratchet had made a complete and utter mess of the place, ruining the careful organisational scheme that the Steelhaven had used ever since Sentinel had set foot on the ship.   
  
"You," Ratchet grunted and did not look up. To be charitable, Ratchet was probably re-organising, not actually disorganising, but Sentinel did not have to like it, and he did not.   
  
He agreed, "Me. I need to ask you a favour."   
  
"No," Ratchet said.   
  
"You haven't even heard what I want to ask!" Sentinel Magnus protested. He did not expect this conversation to be easy, though.   
  
"There is _nothing_ I'll do for you," Ratchet spat. He stood slowly and deliberately straightened himself out, looking like he was contemplating throwing Sentinel bodily out of the medical ward.   
  
"Is this about the Hammer? Because I seriously needed that. Anyway, I'm not asking for _me_ ," Sentinel said, not backing down.   
  
"Yeah? Then why are you asking?" Ratchet asked, his optics narrowed to suspicious splinters.   
  
"Because Epsilon Supreme isn't much on this 'talking' thing, and he is mentally incapable of describing the problem," Sentinel Magnus explained, smirking. He had Ratchet listening now. All he needed was a foot in the door.   
  
"Oh, you want to cut the bond -" Ratchet growled.   
  
"- no," Sentinel Magnus said, and the strength of his conviction surprised even him, but he meant it. Epsilon Supreme curled in the back of his head, pleased and content that Sentinel did not want to give him up. Besides, being purely pragmatic, bonds were slagging hard to break and even trying might kill him. Sentinel very much enjoyed being alive. "No, I... should have done that sooner, if anything. Epsilon Supreme didn't deserve to be comatose and forgotten after all he did in the Great War."   
  
Ratchet cocked his head to one side, one hand on his hip, and his gaze was like scalpel. He said, voice hard, "Lot of bots didn't deserve what they got."   
  
"Right... anyway, no. I wanted to ask you if you could look into his mentality, if you got a chance, and maybe see if anything could be done to make him think more... normally," Sentinel said awkwardly, fidgeting his hands. Epsilon Supreme did not feel there was a problem with his programming. He did not resent how he was hobbled, because he could not. However, he could feel how appalled Sentinel was, and he just wanted Sentinel to feel better. If fixing the crippling would lift a little of the burden of guilt on Sentinel's shoulders, Epsilon Supreme was all in favour.   
  
Behaving too much in common with the box of syringes he was putting away, Ratchet needled, "Because you don't want to share your mind with almost as big a moron as you, huh?"   
  
Sentinel stepped closer, fists clenched, shoulders hunched, and roared, "He's _not_ a moron - and neither am I for that matter - and may I remind you that you are _standing inside him_ as we speak? I know, I know... weapon of mass destruction, but if we expect him to fight for us, we should include him in that 'us'. Epsilon Supreme is an Autobot, and he deserves the freedoms that we all have."   
  
"Even the freedom to disagree with you?" Ratchet asked, voice now quiet.   
  
" _Especially_ that one," Sentinel said, almost desperate. Having a perfect yes-bot was not fun, despite what he might have imagined it would be like when he was younger. It was amazingly creepy. He added sullenly, "Besides, everyone else does it. "   
  
Ratchet nodded once, as if Sentinel had passed some test that Ratchet would have preferred that Sentinel failed. He asked, "All right. Why me? Why some fancy Science Guild hot shot?"   
  
"Because I don't trust those creeps even as far as _you_ can throw them - I could throw them a lot farther, you know," Sentinel Magnus explained, and often, he wished that he could indeed throw them, "You may hate my exhaust manifolds, but you're loyal to Optimus, and she's good about... doing the right thing in these sorts of situations." He touched his index fingers together and looked away.   
  
"The right thing... or nepotism?" Ratchet asked bluntly, "You've never given a flying slag about Omega Supreme's condition."   
  
Sentinel Magnus spread his hands out and reflected on how hard it was just to get a break on anything. He steeled himself, readied one of the most devastating rhetorical weapons in his arsenal, and admitted, "You're right, Ratchet. Completely right. I should have been concerned about this situation sooner. It took making it personal for me to care. Guilty as charged. However, what helps Epsilon Supreme could help Omega Supreme. You can do nothing for either of them because you don't like me, or you can bot up and do the right thing and ignore who asked you to do it."   
  
"I've always been worried about what influence you have on Optimus. Maybe I ought to be more worried about what influence she has on you," Ratchet spat.   
  
Sentinel Magnus smiled beatifically and assumed a relaxed pose of innocence. He said, "So you'll do it? Great. Because I was going to have to ask Minerva if you said, 'No', and, you know, send her along on this mission with you so she could research Epsilon Supreme and then give her access to Omega Supreme for comparative study." Minerva had been assigned to study under Ratchet before. According to Optimus, Ratchet had not enjoyed Minerva's presence in the least because she idolised Ratchet too much. If an appeal to justice did not move Ratchet, threatening to unleash that fangirl on him might be just the motivation Ratchet needed.   
  
Ratchet turned apoplectic and sputtered, "I'll look into it, you oil stain. Now get out of here this instant."   
  
"Oh, certainly," Sentinel Magnus said smugly and marched out. At the doorsill, he added, "But you know, if I focus, I can see what Epsilon Supreme sees... like this medical ward." Then he ran for it.

 

* * *

  
Optimus Prime did not ask Sentinel Magnus how his discussion with Ratchet had gone. Preparing to leave on her mission, she just gave him a chaste kiss and said she would write. He promised, "I'll write, and I... love you." The words seemed to trip on his tongue, unfamiliar but not unwelcome.   
  
"I love you, too," Optimus Prime said, and she gave him another kiss, not so chaste.   
  
Then they were off. Real space did not linearly map to Realm space, as far as the Autobots could determine, but they had determined a crude mapping relation. First, they transwarped in real space to the point that they thought mapped to their Realm destination. Then, they activated the transition device and hoped to the AllSpark that no important matter was consumed to fuel their journey. The stars changed around them on the viewscreen, shifting to blackness and one supermassive green star, visible even from their current orbit around one of the planets of the Realm.   
  
Jazz checked over their navigational data and announced, "Smooth. Looks like this here is Circuit Planet, if the intel we got out of the con cats is right. So far, so good."   
  
"Looks a lot like Cybertron from orbit, only no lights," Ironhide said.   
  
"Hah, it should - the briefing _said_ one of the planets is just covered in roads," Bumblebee said, rubbing her hands together. "Now if I was a rogue Quintesson, which I am so not, I would definitely be hiding on the planet covered with roads. That's my official call as scout!"   
  
Optimus Prime sighed. Bumblebee could be painfully transparent in her motivations. She looked over at Jazz, who admitted, "We have to start somewhere, boss."   
  
"We do," Optimus Prime said, though she grimaced. She waved a hand and commanded, "I was hoping we'd pop out closer to Planet Q, but set him down, then."   
  
There was nothing but trackless roads as far as the optic could see, stretching in all directions. Optimus Prime felt a tug in her spark, the pull of the open road as she looked down the gang plank. Bumblebee went barrelling by her with only a, "Yahoo!" as warning.   
  
She turned and ordered, "Ironhide, you're with Bumblebee. Jazz, you're with me. Ratchet -"   
  
"Stay behind and look after the ship. Yeah, yeah, yeah," groused Ratchet.   
  
"Yes, sir!" Ironhide said enthusiastically, and then he transformed and raced after Bumblebee's dust, as Bumblebee was already out of sight.   
  
Optimus Prime groaned and radioed them to tell them to look for any hint of Decepticon or Quintesson activity, any trace of where they might be now, or some kind of map for this place. The information from their Decepticon prisoners was shoddy at best. Rather ambiguously, Mindwipe had said that the Realm might already look different than it did when they left because, "You never dream the same dream twice, and it is all Alpha-Q's dreaming."   
  
Mindwipe was clearly someone who had never suffered recurring nightmares about spiders.   
  
Optimus Prime transformed and drove along with Jazz. They tried a grid search approach. The similarities to Cybertron vanished the more they drove. Cybertron would have had buildings and bots. Circuit Planet had nothing but desolate endless roads that crossed over and under each other with no traffic signs. Optimus Prime could only imagine that Sentinel would have already driven off a dead end already.   
  
Jazz said, "Wonder why the cons would make a planet like this? They don't appreciate driving, most of them. Unless you think Alpha-Q did?"   
  
"I don't know much about Quintessons," Optimus Prime admitted. "Let alone rogue ones. The history files always made them out as these horrible, disgusting, deviant monsters, but I know better than to believe that sort of thing now. So I don't know what to expect."   
  
"Mmm-hmm," was all Jazz said, and he drifted closer to the inside of the turn and overtook her.   
  
"Jazz?" Optimus Prime said lowly.   
  
Then he transformed, grabbed a guardrail, flipped himself down to the underpass, transformed again, and landed with his wheels rolling. Optimus braked with a screech of air and looked over the other side of the overpass. There was a black motorcycle somewhat similar in design to Oil Slick racing along Jazz's side, trying to cut into his tyres with spiked hubcaps. He transformed, flipped out his nunchaku, and tripped the motorcycle under the front wheel, flipping it. It bounced a few times and then fell down another underpass.   
  
Optimus Prime jumped down after them, debating between her Battle Blades and her axe. She went with the axe, which had more reach. None of it mattered much, because by the time she caught up with Jazz and the motorcycle, Jazz had stasis cuffs on the other Transformer. The motorcycle had transformed to a sinuously graceful robot mode, almost feline, with a helm that reminded of Optimus of the 'Anubis' of Sari's fairy tales. The other feline aspect was the set of claws, which had scratched up Jazz's bodywork something fierce, though none of the cuts looked deep or immediately dangerous. The cuffed Transformer wore a Decepticon symbol and struggled and snarled. His optics were devoid of hatred or fear, though, and seemed blank, like he was writhing on instinct alone.   
  
"Uhm. Good work," Optimus Prime said, looking over Jazz's catch. "Decepticon, explain yourself."   
  
The Decepticon only growled.   
  
Jazz said, "Not sure who he is. Maybe we can cross-reference against the files back in the ship, if he doesn't feel talkative."   
  
Optimus Prime nodded and described the brief altercation to the others on the radio. Then she offered, "I have a flatbed trailer you can strap him down to." She was summoning the correct trailer when four more identical motorcycles surrounded them.

 

* * *

  
"I am not sure this is a job for ninja-bots," Sentinel Magnus said to the Twins, one hand on either of their shoulders.   
  
"But we must hole all the hideys!" Jetfire protested.   
  
"Yeah, yeah, the Autotroopers will do that, and they'll make a big show of doing that, such a big show that any 'badness-bots' will see them a mile coming," Sentinel Magnus replied, doing the air quotes.   
  
"Ah, so this is likeness of diversion, while we do real looking, yes?" Jetstorm asked eagerly.   
  
"No, the 'real looking' is probably being done by Cliffjumper Prime's bots in Intel, because this is a matter of Commonwealth Security, as my two _ex_ -bodyguards have 'escaped', conveniently just after Optimus Prime left to a place where we can't contact her by communicator," Sentinel Magnus said, grimacing. He tended toward the paranoid side, and days like these did not help. He wished she was here. He wished _Jazz_ was here. Jazz was perfect for this sort of work. He even found himself wanting Rodimus's opinion on the matter, as the sports car often had odd insights, but then he reminded himself firmly that he could not have Rodimus's opinion or anything else of him. Rodimus Prime was out of his life, however badly Sentinel Prime wanted him in it. The breakup felt like a worse betrayal than whatever it was Sparkride and Horsepower were up to. If Rodimus Prime had tried to kill Sentinel, he would have at least known how to handle it.   
  
"Then nothing is left to be doing," Jetfire said, pouting.   
  
"Wrong! See, I don't think they really escaped, as such. I mean, come on. The timing is just too coincidental. I think someone let them go. So staring at their empty cells and trying to figure out how they broke out isn't going to do any good, if someone just unlocked the blasted place. Scouring all the slums is pointless if they're hiding in a posh safe house somewhere," Sentinel Magnus said. "So I want you to find and follow the trail of bribes. Mean, none of the guards saw _anything_? The security tapes are all gone? That's ridiculous."   
  
"Hah, we will be detective greats!" Jetstorm promised.   
  
"I will be detective _greater,_ " Jetfire vowed.   
  
Sentinel Magnus smiled and told them, "Just remember what Jazz has taught you and try not to draw too much attention. Good luck."   
  
They bounded off, chattering to each other about the best way to approach the problem. They really were bright, talented young bots, and they had some of the finest training that the Commonwealth could offer. They were the Elite Guard, the best of the best.   
  
Of course, Sentinel Magnus had already shared this conjecture with Cliffjumper Prime and Captain Depth Charge, who were inclined to agree with his thinking. There would be some subtler agents on the job. Sentinel Magnus approved of overkill.

 

* * *

  
When five motorcycle Decepticons, counting the one in cuffs, became twenty-five, Optimus Prime grabbed Jazz by the shoulders and bore him upwards, aloft on her Jetblade wings. She grumbled, "What a _mess_."   
  
"Y-yeah," Jazz agreed. "More clones?"   
  
"Maybe. I don't know where they're getting all the sparks for these things," Optimus said back, shouting to make herself heard while she flew.   
  
Jazz snapped his fingers and exclaimed, " _That's_ what I was feeling! Or what I wasn't. Optimus, they don't _have_ sparks."   
  
Ninja-bots could just tell those things, sometimes. Optimus Prime had not believed it when Prowl had told her that the Dinobots had sparks, but he was right. So she trusted Jazz now and speculated, "If they don't have sparks, they're drones? That's why it didn't talk?"   
  
"Could be," Jazz agreed.   
  
She looked down. The biker pack was following her, which was no good. Optimus Prime said, "We need to lead them away from the _Steelhaven_ and bring one back for Ratchet to examine. Think you can outdrive them on a curved course?"   
  
"I was built for it," Jazz said smugly, and she could almost hear the smirk in his voice.   
  
"Good," Optimus Prime said, as a few of the motorcycles transformed and started peppering the air around her with lasers, "Then get ready for me to drop you."

 

* * *

  
Now Sentinel Magnus had to face the Council and convince them not to replace Sparkride and Horsepower. The whole idea in appointing those two as his bodyguards was that an assassin had taken down Ultra Magnus, so obviously, the Magnus needed more protection. Sentinel Magnus had always objected, partially out of pride and partially out of the idea that they were probably just a pair of spies working for some Councillor or other and trying to collect blackmail material on him. He ran a thumb down the fabric of his cape, good synthetic polymer, not like the weird cottons and silks and whatevers that the Earth humans used, straightened it, and hit the podium.   
  
With his best stentorian voice, he addressed the Council, "We meet here and now to discuss the matter of replacing my erstwhile bodyguards. Often, the public cries out for us to trim the drag - they want a leaner, aerodynamic, road-hugging Council with no unnecessary frills. You tell me that Ultra Magnus didn't have bodyguards and that's why he died. I will tell you that I have personally saved Horsepower and Sparkride's lives, oh... twenty times now? But who's counting? Not the Council, certainly, but the tax-payers... well, they _should_ be. So I move that the positions of bodyguards to the Magnus be terminated."   
  
A shuriken whizzed out of the darkness.

 

* * *

  
Optimus Prime watched from above as Jazz led the vicious motorcycle pack off on a wild ride until she saw the opening that she wanted. She had a trick that she had read in an old Decepticon aerial combat manual that her Elite Guard rank allowed her to access. Optimus Prime flew up, using the sun to make herself harder to see, and then, out of the sun, she dropped down on one of the stragglers, downward speed boosted by her axe's rockets, and cleanly knocked out the motorcycle in one blow. Optimus Prime slapped a stasis clamp on its wheel and hefted it up into the air. She radioed ahead, //Ratchet, I've caught one of the motorcycle drones. I'm taking it back to the ship - er, to Epsilon Supreme for you to examine. Maybe there's a central control for these things. Jazz, don't let them catch you. Bumblebee, Ironhide, keep looking for more clues.//   
  
When she returned back to Epsilon Supreme, cargo in tow, Ratchet was waiting there for her, frowning. Optimus asked, "Anyone you recognise from the Great War?"   
  
"No clue," Ratchet grunted, and he set to work, "More bots died in that war than I ever met."   
  
Optimus Prime left him to his work and went with Jazz to the _Steelhaven_ 's computer banks to see if they could look up who the Decepticon was. Unfortunately, the databanks on board the ship only contained the more well-known Decepticons.   
  
Epsilon Supreme's voice rumbled over the intercom, "Do you want me to ask Sentinel Magnus to look?"   
  
Optimus looked up at the speaker, surprised by his voice. She reminded, "We aren't in normal space. We don't have contact with Cybertron."   
  
"So?" Epsilon Supreme asked, sounding confused.   
  
Jazz narrowed his visor and said softly, "Your bond is still intact. You can 'hear' ol' S. M., so I wonder if he was gambling on exactly that, assigning us the _Steelhaven_ for this mission over any other ship."   
  
"Don't give Sentinel too much credit, Jazz," Optimus said wryly, "It'll go to his head." She tried to remember what time it would be on Cybertron. "Isn't he supposed to be in a Council meeting right now?"   
  
"He is," Epsilon Supreme confirmed.   
  
"So he's busy, anyway, though he's probably bored senseless, that lucky bot," Optimus Prime said, "not knee deep in trouble like we are," and she took the moment to check back in on Bumblebee and Ironhide.

 

* * *

  
Sentinel Magnus had his Skyboom Shield on his arm just a bare moment before the shuriken could hit. The throwing star bounced off his shield and clattered to the floor. The metal of the shuriken had a greasy gleam to it, and he wondered if it was poisoned. The red and green trim on Horsepower and Slayride suddenly made him think of crimson lava and hissing chartreuse acid. His mind stayed on the thought of poison only an instant though, before he was looking to not where they were but to where they would be by the time he could get there.   
  
He saw that they were not headed for him but for Councillor Eronus, who was one of the main opposition leaders against him. Sentinel Magnus did not waste time on puzzling about why. He rolled for it and then rose up in robot mode, bringing the shield up into a dome to protect Eronus. Horsepower had not been expecting that move, and Sentinel took advantage of his hesitation to bash the main body of his shield into his head, which rung like a bell as he fell.   
  
Slayride was quicker and cannier. He vaulted into the air over the dome of the shield, hit the ceiling feet first and pushed off, tucked his legs into his chest to spin his whole body as he dropped, and he landed on his feet just behind Alpha Trion. As Slayride rose out of his crouch, a sickly green glowing blade slid out of his arm. Sentinel Magnus cut the power to the dome shield and retracted it into a compact spiked format. The green blade whispered forward to kiss the back of Alpha Trion's neck, but the thrown Skyboom Shield thundered into Slayride's shoulder and bowled him over before his blade could sink its edge into Alpha Trion's ancient metal.   
  
The action was fast and over quicker than most bots could process. Sentinel Magnus summoned the Hammer and waded through the crowd, which was only now starting to panic, having had enough time to realise that they ought to be afraid. Detached, he checked to see that the shield's spikes had indeed pinned Slayride to the floor while voices rose around him in screams and shouts.   
  
"Councillor Avalon, you have the silence on the right," said a _very_ familiar voice.   
  
Fearing a trick, Sentinel cuffed Slayride and yanked his shield out of the ninja-bot's shoulder before he turned to see what the commotion was. There was Jetstorm reading Councillor Avalon his rights, badly, and Jetfire cuffing Horsepower. Sentinel Magnus leaned against the haft of the Hammer, putting his weight onto it, and he stared, optics wide to look for any further trouble. In the very back of his head, Epsilon Supreme was going on about something , but he did not have the processor cycles to spare to pay attention to the Omega Sentinel. Sentinel cleared his voicebox with the crackle of static and demanded, "What in the name of energony goodness is going on?"   
  
"Ah, we are too clever for the good of your own. We saw that you were just working us busy, so Jetstorm went to Captain Depth Charge, and I went to Cliffjumper Prime," Jetfire explained, "so as to coordinate efforts."   
  
Sentinel Magnus's left optic twitched, but he supposed he could not blame them for taking after himself. Avalon demanded, "On what grounds do you cretins accost me?"   
  
"Treason!" Jetstorm said, incongruously cheerily, "Also fraternising with Decepticons and Quintessons, tsk tsk. Conspiracy. Oh, oh, what was the whole list Captain Depth Charge was giving me? Is quite long..." He made a point of pulling out a datapad and reading off each charge very slowly.   
  
While the screaming had subsided, the shouting had not, which made thinking hard, but Sentinel finally took a moment for it anyway. Eronus and Alpha Trion were definitely not in his political camp. If they had died, his whole side would have been discredited, the Magnus being shamefully unable to defend himself or protect his people. Clearly, Sentinel was supposed to be dead, too, which would have left a power vacuum. In theory, his title would pass to Optimus if he died, but Eronus and Alpha Trion were two of Optimus's biggest supporters, and they would not have been around to advocate for Optimus if they were dead. Moreover, Epsilon Supreme had managed to get a thought in edgewise that she was in some unspecified form of trouble, so she might not even be able to show up to calm the chaos that would have resulted.   
  
That political maelstrom would have suited Avalon very nicely, Sentinel Magnus realised. With Sentinel's party without leadership and Alpha Trion's party in the same boat and Optimus Prime off on a mission in a parasite universe and beyond the range of normal communications, Avalon and his party could have easily seized control. He gripped the Hammer tighter, and he considered that he could have easily gone overboard with excessive force in defending himself and the others. That outcome, too, could have been a victory for Avalon. A number of Councillors would have loved to see Sentinel Magnus fly off the handle, which would provide them with a perfect excuse to get rid of him as a too-violent war hawk.   
  
To seize the situation for himself instead, Sentinel Magnus strode over to the podium and finished his speech, "As you can see," he flourished a hand out at the mess before him, "a proper Magnus does not need bodyguards, because a proper Magnus is not protected by his people. A proper Magnus protects them himself."

 

* * *

  
//Bumblebee, what? // Optimus Prime snapped, //No! No, letting Ironhide get dogpiled by ten motorcycle drones 'because he has impervious armour' is _not_ okay.//   
  
Jazz must have seen the expression on her face, because he asked, "That bad?"   
  
Ratchet broke in with, "I got the control signal triangulated. What's Bumblebee done now?"   
  
"See, Jazz? Ratchet just _knows_ ," Optimus grumbled, "Ran into a pack of motorcycle drones and left Ironhide in the middle of it. I can probably swoop down and pull him out, but that's not the point."   
  
"Oh, is that all?" Ratchet said, "Made some progress with the transition device, too. Now it can pull matter from this pocket dimension for fuel instead of just from normal reality."   
  
"We could collapse it," Optimus Prime realised. Her optics widened at the thought. They had talked about destroying the Realm. Now they had the means to do so. Before crashing on Earth, she would have made the call in an instant. There was a threat to the Commonwealth. She was a little cog in the great Autobot machine. There was only one way to spin this story. She had made that call about the Dinobots, ordering them to be smelted. Optimus had been wrong, then, too. "We'll track down the source of that control signal first. Ratchet, can you direct where the matter is pulled from?"   
  
"You _can_. Red Alert and I already figured that part out," Ratchet replied smugly.   
  
Optimus Prime felt a chill down her primary support strut and asked quietly, "Ratchet, where has it been pulling from, all this time?"   
  
"That's the darnedest thing. A black hole," Ratchet said.   
  
Optimus Prime ordered, //Bumblebee, get Ironhide out of there and meet us at these coordinates,// which she gave. "Jazz. You're with me again. We'll meet Bumblebee and Ironhide there. Ratchet, stay with Epsilon Supreme."   
  
Jazz looked thoughtful and slightly disturbed. He asked, "Ratchet, that black hole -"   
  
"It is what you think it is," Ratchet confirmed, even more gruff and bristly than usual.   
  
Optimus turned a questioning look on the both of them and then demanded, "Explain it to me on the road." If this was another old secret like Ratchet's past with Lockdown, Optimus Prime did not care if bots felt ashamed by the past. She was more concerned by who might be hurt in the future by matters left unsaid.

 

* * *

  
The Autotroopers arrived later, not as fast as the Twins. The Council chambers were quiet now, most of the Councillors having retired home for the day. A few stuck around to give their statements to Autotroopers who asked them a canned list of questions. Leaning against one wall, Jetstorm chattered privately with his brother and Sentinel Magnus, //Avalon is being all taped up with incrimination.//   
  
//And trailed by money,// Jetfire added. He was so self-satisfied that he could barely stay still.   
  
//The case is that solid, huh?// Sentinel Magnus asked. He stood between the two brothers and idly watched what little action remained. Cliffjumper Prime was going to arrive any moment and pull him away for a debriefing. Sentinel thought his speech had been well-received, and then he caught himself. He was growing accustomed to mayhem, that the politics mattered more to him than the assassination attempt.   
  
//Rocking solid,// Jetstorm confirmed, as smug as his brother, //Videos, tapes, credit transfers... doubtless, investigation will up-turn more. Hah hah, he was thinking he would be getting away with working with a Quintesson! Such foolishness.//   
  
In that idle moment, in the back of his head, Epsilon Supreme pushed at Sentinel Magnus. The distance made the deciphering his thoughts harder, but Epsilon Supreme's thoughts were never very complex. Epsilon Supreme was showing more initiative on his own now, but Sentinel Magnus could never shake the inescapable knowledge that Epsilon was only showing initiative because it made his Magnus feel better. He wanted to know if his Magnus could look up a Decepticon in the archives for Optimus. Sentinel pushed back and dug around for the reason why, and then he slapped the heel of his hand to his forehead, muttering, "So it isn't bad enough that I get jumped by two ninja-bots. Optimus has to show me up by landing on _the planet of the ninja motorcycle drones_."   
  
"Uh, sir?" Jetfire inquired, those odd orange optics of his flashing with mild concern.   
  
"You are doing that thing where you are definitely not talking to yourself again, sir?" Jetstorm asked.   
  
"Yeah. That thing," Sentinel Magnus agreed wearily.

 

* * *

  
Optimus Prime looked to Bumblebee and Ironhide, who were pointedly not speaking to each other. She, they, and Jazz huddled just outside the entrance of a tunnel. Inside the tunnel was the source of the control signal, according to Ratchet. Bumblebee rushed in early, and they found a black motorcycle Decepticon, unlike the others that they had seen solely in that he was no drone.   
  
He moved and flowed like a shadow. When Optimus Prime's optics cycled a blink, he seemed to vanish entirely. Most Decepticons were difficult to fight because they had the sheer, raw power of five Autobots. This Decepticon was just that strong, but he had skill that Optimus had rarely seen matched. That was saying something; most Decepticons had better training than even Elite Autobots did, too. He seemed utterly emotionless, much like Perceptor. Not even the worst of Bumblebee's taunts could crack his icy shell.   
  
//He's special ops,// Jazz warned them, his evaluation quick and cool.   
  
"Oh, you're _special_ , all right!" Bumblebee taunted the Decepticon and was grabbed up by the Decepticon, her pelvis in one hand and her shoulders in the other. The Decepticon seemed quite intent on simply pulling Bumblebee apart.   
  
Then Ironhide headbutted the Decepticon from behind, forcing him to drop Bumblebee. In retaliation, the Decepticon mule kicked him into one of the cavern walls, and only his steel skin saved him from a rush of falling stalactites. Jazz tried to snare and slice through the supporting ankle with his laser nunchaku when the other leg went up for that kick. The Decepticon, too canny, nearly nailed Jazz with a proton bomb. Optimus Prime sprayed down some fire retardant foam to try to make his next footstep slippery, but he vaulted into the air and dug one hand into the ceiling. Optimus tried to catch him with a grappler, but he melted into the shadows.   
  
Jazz shouted, //Get out of the shadows, Optimus!//   
  
She flicked on all her lights and rushed to the middle of the cavern. The Decepticon slunk out of a different shadow and smashed a mace into her back. She was built more durably now than she had been for most of her life. A few decades ago, and that blow would have killed Optimus Prime as surely as that fall on Earth did. Now the damage just made Optimus angry. She slammed an elbow into the Decepticon's knee, flicking out a Battle Blade in the same gesture, kept up the momentum, and slammed the Battle Blade through his hip.   
  
In the back of the cavern, Bumblebee was freeing Ironhide from the crushing stones, a big job for a small bot. Jazz was back on his feet but limping; something must have been damaged inside him by the proton bomb's blast. Optimus twisted as she pulled the blade out, trying to keep the Decepticon's attention squarely on her. Instead, he seemed to divide his attention effortlessly. He flung Optimus into Jazz with a lazy swipe of his free hand and sent another proton bomb hurtling at the ceiling above Bumblebee and Ironhide, clearly intending to trap them both.   
  
Tangled up with Jazz on the cavern floor, Optimus Prime fought to free one arm, cast a grappler line, and grabbed the proton bomb out of the air. She whipped it back and let it fly at the Decepticon, who finally went down, if only for a moment.   
  
"Doesn't like the taste of his own medicine, does he?" Bumblebee asked, smirking, and the quick little scout slapped a pair of stasis cuffs on the Decepticon's hands before he could rise again.   
  
Optimus helped Jazz up, and the ninja-bot leaned on her for balance. She took a quick stock of the situation and realised that while everyone was injured, no one was dying. Ironhide was still buried under a pile of rocks, and heard him radio weakly, //Uh, little help, here?//   
  
She sighed and summoned her axe. There Optimus Prime was, Commander of the Elite Guard, chopping rocks in the middle of nowhere like the maintenance-bot she had been. She ordered, //Jazz, try to get him to talk. We need to know what's going on here.//   
  
Jazz hobbled over closer to the Decepticon, his nunchaku stowed for the moment. He said softly, "I'm sure you've danced this dance a time or two before, but I have to tell you your rights, anyway -"   
  
"Is that Optimus Prime?" the Decepticon asked. His voice was devoid of emotion, much like Perceptor's, but he had something of Jetfire and Jetstorm's accent. Perhaps he originally hailed from the same city-state or colony that they did, back when it was under Decepticon control.   
  
"Listen, I ask the questions here," Jazz said, sounding friendly enough.   
  
"It is," the Decepticon stated, rolling his head around to look at Optimus. There was still nothing in his optics when he said, "The one who took Megatron from us."   
  
"Hey, Optimus had a whole lot of help with that! Like me," Bumblebee butted in smugly. She was still helping remove the rubble trapping Ironhide.   
  
"More solidly designed than most female Autobots," the Decepticon observed dispassionately, "More like a female of my own kind. Not like that little buzzing creature."   
  
"Your rights, Decepticon," Jazz said more firmly, and he explained them while severing the Decepticon's radio so that he could not summon any motorcycle drones to help him. The Decepticon seemed to have no interest at all in his rights, only in the one who had killed Megatron.   
  
"Intelligence suggests that your new Magnus is so negligent that he allows you to carry the remains of the AllSpark within you," the Decepticon further postulated. He paused and added, "Do not bother with denial. I can see the truth of it. Megatron's killer carrying the one hope of his rebirth. What a fine day this is." He was definitely trying to throw them off, and Optimus resolved to not allow him to rattle her.   
  
"Cut the bogey-bot routine," Jazz ordered, "Alpha-Q. You know where he is?"   
  
"If you would just step outside, you would see him," the Decepticon replied, almost sounding catty for a moment.   
  
"There's nothing out there but roads!" Bumblebee scoffed.   
  
"Roads and sky," Optimus Prime muttered, contemplative, "and a big green sun. We already knew he was on one of the other planets. You aren't telling us anything we don't know," not that he had any reason to do so. She was not about to offer him the AllSpark Matrix for information.   
  
"You think that's funny, cat?" Jazz asked softly, "'cos I don't, and I got a pretty good sense of humour. You want to try that again?"   
  
"You wish to cuff and capture Alpha-Q as you have me, is that not so?" the Decepticon said.   
  
"None of your business what we want," Jazz said back.   
  
"You will not be able to manage it," the Decepticon continued smoothly, his train of thought unbroken by Jazz's assertion, "Megatron's murderer has already spoken the truth of it."   
  
"So he's on another planet -" Jazz started.   
  
"No. You do not even listen to your commanding officer, and I may never hear my master's words again," the Decepticon said, his lack of emotion making his words strange, "Such slovenly discipline."   
  
"What does not being on a planet have to do with being unable to be captured?" Optimus Prime asked herself, leaning on her axe's haft for a moment of respite.   
  
"So you deign to ask your own questions, murderer," the Decepticon said, cool as ever, "There is nothing you can do here, however, Alpha-Q is the sun."   
  
"He's cracked," Bumblebee opined and made a spinning hand gesture next to one of her horns.   
  
"Actually," Optimus Prime said thoughtfully, narrowing her optics, "I could just have that star torn apart."   
  
The emotionless Decepticon twitched.

 

* * *

  
"I thought you were bluffing, boss!" Jazz said. He paced through Epsilon Supreme's corridors behind her, looking shell-shocked.   
  
"Ratchet has findings that back it up, now that we know what to look for. Alpha-Q merged his consciousness with that green sun somehow in the process of creating this parasite universe. Our Decepticon guest just didn't count on us being able to do anything about it. Arrogance," she said, a small self-depreciating smile resting on her lips as she shook her head, "Don't ever let me get like that Jazz."   
  
"I'm trying," Jazz replied, tiredly. He did not like Optimus's plan.   
  
"You'll do it," Optimus said firmly, "You managed Sentinel for how long?"   
  
"Hate to say it, but Sentinel's never tried to tear apart a star - yet," Jazz admitted.   
  
"Yet," Optimus echoed sourly, "We use the star for conversion mass to move these planets to the Caldoon system. Overlord... destroyed most of the planets there during the Great War, before he deserted," history had always been her strong point, "and the star charts show that the system has room for more planets now. Autobot teams capture what other Decepticons may be lurking here for fair trials. What's left of the star, we dump into the Benzuli Expanse. No one goes there, anyway. This parasite universe collapses, removing the ability to move objects back and forth, protecting reality."   
  
"And Alpha-Q dies," the ninja-bot reminded her.   
  
"He's already dead, Jazz! By the AllSpark's light, he's probably been dead longer than I've been alive!" Optimus Prime snapped, thinking about her hasty judgement on the Dinobots, how she would have had them smelted, if Prowl and Bulkhead had not whisked them away in secret. Was she being rash and harsh again? Was that denial of right to life why the AllSpark never granted her requests? "He lost his body and dumped his mind into a sun after creating a process that will destroy the whole universe if we don't do something about it. We don't have any way to apprehend him, and we have to collapse this parasite universe. We'll get the planets and any Decepticons that may be here out. That's the best that we can do. Besides, uhm... under our codes of war, Alpha-Q is a Quintesson. He doesn't have a non-combatant Decepticon's rights to capture and trial."   
  
Jazz held her gaze and then looked away. He whispered, "You sound like him."   
  
Optimus Prime said, "I know."


	11. Chapter 11

During the quartexes while Rodimus Prime was recovering in the hospital, the Council debated how to handle the Realm threat, and Optimus Prime and her Elite Guard were dispatched to solve the problem. With Omega Supreme in dry-dock, they borrowed Epsilon Supreme, who received much fanfare from the press, curiously little of which mentioned any of Sentinel's involvement in Epsilon's revival. Rodimus Prime watched it all, because there was not a news channel that did not discuss it in some shape or fashion. He watched Optimus Prime return victorious, as she always did, radiant and glorious, with the remaining Decepticon helpers of Alpha-Q in chains. He watched Sentinel Magnus in various committees, and he read between the lines as to what was not said.  
  
Rodimus Prime was alone, and he ached.   
  
His team was back on space bridge 687-030, along with Override Prime and her crew as temporary extra help until Rodimus Prime was well again. From what Kup said in his letters, Hot Shot was absolutely thrilled about having the chance to match his speed against some of the fastest Autobots in the Commonwealth. Red Alert was fretting over increased wear on their tyres from all of the racing. Without thinking about it, he brought up the last letters he had from Optimus and Sentinel, one each they had sent after he broke up with them. Optimus's letter was polite, reserved, and understanding, though it radiated a sort of quiet sadness. Sentinel's letter tried very hard to be diplomatic and nearly pulled it off, but Rodimus was skilled at seeing what was not written, and when he looked at the letter, he saw an abjectly miserable Sentinel.   
  
Rodimus Prime hoped the two of them had reconciled. At least they seemed happy enough when he saw them together on the news, happier than they had looked when he last saw them. Maybe Optimus was wrong for risking her team by her choice of lover; maybe Rodimus was wrong not to because he ended up hurting bots he cared about either way. Maybe he should have asked his team first if they minded the risk his lovers posed before he broke up with Sentinel and Optimus.   
  
The nurses eventually let him move a little more. Most of them were nice enough, and he listlessly flirted with them, purely out of reflex. The psychologist he had been appointed was fine, he supposed, though he was dubious how much help the bot could be when Rodimus's problem, such as it was, was that his evil clone had attacked him, violently stolen all his memories, and then infected him with Sideways, who had proceeded to possess him and use him against his comrades and loved ones. When he was offered code patches to dull the memories, he turned them down.   
  
When Rodimus Prime was offered a mood-upping code patch to deal with his depression, he paused and stared, before insisting, "I'm not depressed!" He did not think he was depressed, anyway. Then he added, "No, look. I know why I'm... down. I have a concrete reason, and I'll get over it."

 

* * *

  
Eventually, Rodimus Prime was handed his clean bill of health, and he all but took it and ran. As he considered what to do before he had to ship out again and at last reunite with his team, a pang hit him as he realised that Sentinel Magnus was on Cybertron, as he usually was. If Rodimus Prime had still been seeing him, he could have, well, gone and seen him! He considered his other friends and acquaintances. Most of them were busy with duties of their own. Quickslinger was off with the Ninja Corps, doing things she could not mention. Skram was deployed. Blaster was booked solid with propaganda gigs.   
  
Rodimus Prime went down the list, and he ended up visiting his evil clone in Trypticon Prison. Stripped of his electronic paint job, Dark Rodimus was once again black and purple, though his Decepticon emblem was missing, and he lounged in his cell, sprawled out like a bored fashion model. He did not look up when Rodimus paused just outside the cell. Rodimus Prime cleared his voice box and greeted cheerily, "How's prison?"   
  
"Less torture than I expected," Dark Rodimus replied. "I know you're Autobots, but really? Your interrogators have no idea what they're doing." He swung his legs over the edge of the small berth and then leaned back against the back wall, his arms folded cockily behind his head. He yawned. "Pretty dull. Come to gloat?"   
  
"No," Rodimus Prime said, frowning.   
  
"Aww. I would have," Dark Rodimus pouted, and then he smiled, both glittering and unpleasant.   
  
"I know you would have," Rodimus Prime said glumly, a sinking feeling in the pit of his fuel tank. He did know that, as he knew himself. "I just want to talk to you."   
  
Dark Rodimus looked calculating and shrewd for a moment, a ferocious intellect to match Rodimus Prime's own behind his baleful red optics. Then he shrugged flippantly and agreed, "Yes, that is like you."   
  
"So they're treating you... well? What I saw of your trial on the news looked fair enough," Rodimus Prime said, searching for a line of conversation. Technically, the Autobots could have shoved Dark Rodimus in an incinerator. He was not a registered Decepticon, and he was not a Commonwealth civilian or Autobot, so he did not exist, legally. The fact that the clone had been given a trial at all was somewhat remarkable. What was somewhat more remarkable was that, in a stroke of mad cunning, his defence attorney, Roulette, had argued that as Dark Rodimus was not a registered Decepticon and had, in fact, been created long after the Great War ended, he could not be properly considered a Decepticon at all and was better tried as a civilian. She got away with that, too, likely because Dark Rodimus looked awfully like an Autobot and was thus sympathetic to the jury. The prosecutor, Air Raid, had been reported to be furious over the outcome, which resulted in a much lighter sentence and the chance of parole for Dark Rodimus, though he was still imprisoned in Trypticon Prison like Decepticons were. Rodimus Prime's own feelings were mixed. His clone had done horrible things to him and was gleefully unrepentant, but he was also painfully young. Rodimus Prime remembered how thoughtless Hot Rod had been, when he had gone by that name, and if that childish fecklessness had been combined with Decepticon cruelty, he supposed he might have been much the same as Dark Rodimus.   
  
Dark Rodimus threw his head back and laughed, slapping his knee. "Fair? Back home, I could have challenged Air Raid to a duel if he wanted to call me guilty. Then I would have won, he would have been dead, and that would have been the end of it." His optics glowed brightly, as if he was savouring the thought of deadly combat. Rodimus Prime still felt a little ill whenever he thought about killing Blackout. "But by your standards? Perhaps too fair." He smirked smugly.   
  
"Have you given any thought to what you might do when you make parole?" Rodimus Prime inquired, genuinely curious.   
  
"As a civilian of the Commonwealth, I'm keeping my options open," Dark Rodimus said, all but rolling in the irony, "but I have no plans to take up energon farming or refinery work, if you know what I mean."   
  
"That stuff bored me, too. That's why I joined the army to become an Autobot," Rodimus Prime explained. "Have you given that any thought?"   
  
"And be weak like you?" Dark Rodimus asked derisively.   
  
"I'm not the one in a prison cell," Rodimus Prime noted, grinning, and he put a hand on his hip, cockiness for cockiness.   
  
"Feh. The only reason you're not still hosting Sideways is because you had backup," Dark Rodimus said. He looked annoyed, though. Rodimus had started to crack his smug shell.   
  
"Exactly. Autobots are stronger working together than any Decepticon. They've just left you here. If you were an Autobot captured in a Decepticon prison, there'd be someone to rescue you," Rodimus Prime said, pressing his clone.   
  
"So where are they for you now?" Dark Rodimus asked, rubbing his chin, optics flat and hard.   
  
"What?" Rodimus Prime said, confused.   
  
"Your precious togetherness and fellow Autobots. Where are they? Because it seems to me that the only way you would be here, talking to me, is if you had _no one_ ," Dark Rodimus said evenly, with a sort of inevitably about his words, as if he had shoved Rodimus into a smelting pool and now only needed to wait for the pool to swallow him, "and nothing better to do than hear the sound of your own voice. Where are your Sentinel and Optimus? You seemed very fond of them in your memories."   
  
"Everyone is not around everyone all the time," Rodimus Prime snapped irritably, reacting more than he had wanted, giving more of himself away to his dark duplicate than he could spare.   
  
"I think I will give them a call when I get out on parole," Dark Rodimus said, lying himself back down on the narrow berth, chest first. He crossed his ankles behind himself and propped himself up on his elbows. "See if Sentinel still wants that foursome."   
  
"He was _kidding,_ " Rodimus Prime protested, hands out and open near his hips. Never mind that hypothetical foursome would never happen because he himself would not be there for a threesome in the first place.   
  
"Really," Dark Rodimus said flatly, his optics narrowed. "In your memories, they seemed pretty good in the sack for a pair of Autobot saps. That's a shame. Sure you aren't just trying to keep them for yourself? I would."   
  
Rodimus Prime slipped and said, "They aren't mine anymore."   
  
Dark Rodimus cycled a blink of mild surprise and drawled, "You are a fool, then, to lose your grip on such dangerous lovers. I'm glad I'm not you."   
  
"I'm not the one in a prison cell," Rodimus Prime repeated, now miserably.   
  
Dark Rodimus sniffed, "Even so."

 

* * *

  
The changeover with Override Prime went smoothly enough.   
  
Of course, before she left, Rodimus Prime raced her and lost, but he sure did not mind the sight of her taillights. Then he moped. It took Rodimus Prime some time to realise that he was moping. He did not let his feelings interfere with his duty; if he had he might have noticed it sooner. Rodimus still filled out his reports, drove his patrols, stood his watches, trained and tuned as hard as he ever did, and ran his team through their drills. It was what he did or, rather, did not do off-duty that tipped him off. Maybe it was the third time he told Hot Shot that no, he did not want to play video games, even if Hot Shot had a new bootleg copy of Mage Master Maze Knight: The Ascension. Maybe it was how he tended to just hit the sack as soon as he could, and when he woke up, the best idea he had to do was to make 'to do' lists for everything around the outpost. At least they finally put up that extra set of solar panels he had always been meaning to assemble.   
  
In any case, he was moping, and Kup called him on it, putting a hand on his shoulder and demanding, "Lad, what's got you so down?"   
  
"I broke up with Sentinel Magnus and Optimus Prime," Rodimus Prime admitted, seeing no reason to prevaricate.   
  
"That's great - but I asked you why you're _moping,_ " Kup said, his dislike of Sentinel again getting the better of him.   
  
Rodimus Prime decided he had endured quite enough of that and did something he wished he had done much sooner. He elbowed Kup, hard, and snarled, "Hah. Hah. Very funny, old man. You might not care for Sentinel, but I did," and still did now, "so lay off about it. I get my duties done perfectly well, anyway, so I don't see that it's any of your business."   
  
Kup's optics narrowed shrewdly, and he said back, "Can't a friend be concerned? You said you broke up with them. It wasn't something you wanted, then?"   
  
"No," Rodimus whispered. "I didn't want it at all. I broke up with them because loving them led to all of you," he gestured to Kup and the rest of the hallway in general, "getting hunted down by my evil clone, knocked out, and kidnapped. The Decepticons could have easily killed you. Me being a target made you splash damage. None of you signed on for that, and it's not acceptable."   
  
"...so why didn't you just break up with Sentinel and keep Optimus?" Kup asked.   
  
Rodimus Prime elbowed him again, harder, and attempted to weaponise his glare. "Kup, they're a package deal! And I didn't want to dump either of them. Argh!"   
  
"Eh, you'll get over it, lad. A first breakup -" Kup started to say.   
  
Rodimus Prime stopped him with a broken laugh. "Kup, this is so not my first breakup! When I was nothing but a nameless refinery bot, I had a boyfriend. When I was Hot Rod in Autoboot camp, I had a girlfriend - and Kup, _you_ hauled me and her out of a closet and made us clean the oil depot by hand. I've have boyfriends, girlfriends, lovers, friends with benefits, long-distance relationships, one night stands...!" He threw his hands up in the air, and he wanted to shake Kup. The problem was that he had _not_ wanted this breakup! His other serious long-term relationships had ended due to unresolvable personality conflicts, mostly, or death in a few cases. The relationship had been workable enough from a personality standpoint, and thus, his programming refused to accept his reasons of termination as valid. The excuses he had made were not enough to punctuate his equilibrium and let him move on to a new set point. So he moped.   
  
On a small outpost, word spread as word tended to do. Brawn congratulated him on kicking that loser to the curb, and Rodimus Prime had to steel himself not to kick Brawn, because he probably would have broken his foot again on the stocky Minibot. Hot Shot told him he was glad Rodimus had ditched the dork and would Rodimus finally come play some Mage Master Maze Knight: The Ascension with him? Rodimus Prime took the controllers, drove out on the asteroid, and threw them into the deepest impact crater he could find. It did not matter. Hot Shot, scout that he was, would be able to find the controllers before the solar cycle was out, anyway.   
  
Then Red Alert offered him a code patch to terminate unwanted attractions.   
  
Rodimus Prime went back to just locking himself in his room and defragging the moment his duties were over, if only to avoid his team. Then he contemplated the code patch that Red Alert was offering. After the mess with the mind leech and Sideways, he was extremely leery of tinkering with the programming of his very being. He was still functional. He could do his job. If anything, he was getting more done. He was certainly more organised. He just _hated_ it.   
  
Then one solar cycle, trudging back to his room, he overheard Hot Shot complain, "I miss Override Prime."   
  
Red Alert sniffed, "You wore out your tyres at an unacceptable rate trying to catch her."   
  
"Yeah, it was _great_ ," Hot Shot enthused. "Rodimus used to be fun like that. Now he's just... boring. I wish he was still with his stupid creep boyfriend if he'd just be _himself_ again. I liked Optimus, anyway. She seemed really cool."   
  
"Hot Shot," Red Alert scolded, "he put all of us in unnecessary danger!"   
  
"I _like_ unnecessary danger," Hot Shot said petulantly, "it's the best kind."   
  
Rodimus Prime turned around and walked back toward them, a queasy, feverish uncertainty gripping him. He asked, his voice small, "You really wouldn't have minded, Hot Shot?"   
  
"Of course not!" Hot Shot said, grinning, and he waved a hand dismissively. "I'm totally going to score a space prince or princess from a lost colony someday, anyway. You could have kept your boring old politicians."   
  
Rodimus Prime snorted. "Oookay, I think you've been listening to too many of Kup's stories, but... thank you." He smiled faintly and patted Hot Shot on the shoulder.   
  
"Too many of my stories 'bout what?" broke in Kup, ambling down the other side of the hallway.   
  
"Lost colonial royalty," Rodimus Prime remarked dryly.   
  
"I'm just saying, if Rodimus has a thing for political dweebs, I don't mind if they're dangerous dweebs," Hot Shot added, not particularly helpfully, making hand gestures that would haunt Rodimus until his deactivation day. "If he wants to go bang half the Council, I don't think he needs to worry about splash damage on us, personally. I know you broke up with Optimus and Sentinel, but Levitacus is single, right?"   
  
"Oh AllSpark," Rodimus groaned, absolutely mortified. He covered his face with both his hands and leaned against the wall, desperately trying to scrub the disgusting mental image of dating Levitacus out of his visual buffers. "I do _not_ have a 'thing' for politicians, okay?"   
  
"Hmph, having Red Alert around is probably more dangerous than anyone you might fancy, anyway," Kup observed as he paced over to the group.   
  
"I beg pardon?" Red Alert demanded, affronted, perhaps thinking Kup was slighting her medical skills, which were considerable.   
  
"C'mon, gal, you remember when the Predators attacked, don'tcha?" Kup reminded, optics narrowed and arms folded across his chest. "They wanted to kidnap the Autobot who cured Gold Plastic Syndrome... an' any number of other things I'm sure you can't speak about."   
  
Red Alert sniffed delicately and insisted, "It would be absurd to say that I am too valuable to place on a team simply because I am an appealing target for Decepticons."   
  
"Just so," Kup agreed, looking sidelong at Rodimus.   
  
" _Augh!_ " Rodimus Prime almost screamed. "You cannot be telling me you're all right with this now." Maybe what he needed to do was hit a truck stop back on Cybertron when he had leave again and hook up with random trucks until he found a keeper. Perhaps that would be enough to get over his breakup, a few rebounds and then something serious to settle him down into a new equilibrium. Kup and Hot Shot seriously could not be taunting him with the idea that he could have had what he wanted and ignored the consequences for his team. Everyone always told him he needed to be more responsible, and this was what he got for his trouble when he was?   
  
"I would have filed a formal complaint if I was overly concerned," Red Alert said frostily. "Perhaps I should." She stalked out.   
  
Several days later, Brawn told him, "I was just gonna buy you a call-bot down in Corumkan next leave to get you to stop carryin' on like a weepy pansy-bot, but I guess it'd be cheaper if you handled it on your own."   
  
Rodimus Prime scowled at him and snapped, exasperated, "I am not a weepy pansy-bot."   
  
Brawn snorted his derision. "Yeah, right. A real bot wouldn't breakup because he's _scared_."   
  
"I'm not scared for myself," Rodimus Prime said, for what felt like the hundredth time, "I'm worried I'll get the lot of you hurt!"   
  
"I'm not. Let the 'cons bring it on," Brawn growled, punching his fist into his other hand. "They can't take me."   
  
Rodimus Prime could have pointed out that his evil clone already had, but he closed his open mouth instead and silently reflected that his team had to be nuts. For the most part, his team was more annoyed by his moping than they were worried about the threat of death, and for her part, Red Alert never had filed that formal complaint. His team was nuts, and yet, asking them before his breakup would not have helped, he realised. They were annoyed by the sulking. If he had not moped so much, he supposed they would have been in favour of the breakup.   
  
Rodimus Prime wanted to shoot something. He stalked off to the improvised target range outside the outpost and demolished it.


	12. Chapter 12

"What do you think about Rodimus Prime's letter?" Optimus Prime said lowly, sitting almost on top of Sentinel Magnus's hips. His probe felt so good between her legs, and she rocked forward and back, taking him as she liked. "I know he sort of broke your spark."  
  
"Please," Sentinel Magnus scoffed. "What I did with Epsilon Supreme? That is literally what breaking your spark is. Rodimus... I didn't want to lose him. But his points were good. They always are. Part of why I didn't want to lose him, in fact. Having him back is pretty tempting, but I just don't want to see him go again, you know?"   
  
"Mmm. You're very shy once burned," Optimus Prime said and leaned over him to stroke his cheek with her hand. Both of their engines ran loudly, an exuberant cacophony.   
  
His hands tightened on her hips, and he moved his head to kiss her fingertips. "Fire's fire. It'll burn you no matter how you play with it. Makes it hard, ah, to see the point of second chances. However seductive. You would give him a second chance, wouldn't you?"   
  
"Yes," Optimus Prime panted.   
  
"What are you seeing that I'm not?" Sentinel asked her, as he sometimes did these days. He was still mulish and stubborn, but he respected her opinion enough now to hear it and perhaps to use it if he thought it sound. The change growing inside Sentinel made Optimus smile, mostly when she thought he would not see.   
  
"That the situation as he knew it changed. He was concerned about his team, as a Prime should be. He chose duty over us - as any state promotional video would dictate he should. His team agreed with his choice then. He continues to do his duties, but nowhere does it say that one _must_ do them happily, and his team decided that they'd rather have him be happy than safe. So his points, which were good then, no longer hold now," Optimus Prime said slowly, arching herself back and letting her fingertips trail along his chin and down his chest. Thinking during coupling was hard. There was always a part of her that did not want to bother.   
  
"And if something else happens and his team decides they would rather have safety over his happiness..." Sentinel Magnus said warningly, his words drifting off toward the end. Perhaps he was having trouble thinking, too. He moved his hips, tilting them up and deeper into her as she moved herself down to meet him.   
  
"Red Alert. You know what she's done better than I do," Optimus Prime reminded, optics dimming. Sentinel did not get along particularly well with the brusque medic, but then again, he did not seem to get along particularly well with any medic-bot. She traced small circles on his abdomen and took the whole length of him, her head tilting back in a delight she heard echoed in his revving engine.   
  
"Yes," Sentinel hissed out. "Yes, I do know. But having an unusually talented medic on a team is a slightly different issue."   
  
"But there's a third thing at work here that isn't," Optimus Prime said, "Something that's exactly the same. I really would like to talk to Rodimus, Sentinel, at least once."   
  
There was a sort of relaxing of Sentinel Magnus's body as the fight went out of him, and he agreed quietly, "All right."   
  
Optimus Prime sighed heavily and leaned over him to cup his chin, at least much of it as she could hold with one hand. She reminded, "If you don't want to..."   
  
"...you won't force me. So I will," Sentinel said, almost inaudible under the noise of their engines. He did not look at her.   
  
There was no arguing with Sentinel Magnus when he had made up his mind to agree with her, so Optimus Prime put thinking aside and let herself submerge in sheer pleasure instead.

 

* * *

  
Rodimus Prime wondered if writing Optimus and Sentinel had been a poor idea on his part. He was a little surprised that they actually got his letter. There were not many bots who could just write up the Elite Guard Commander or the Magnus and have the letter actually get there. He understood them telling their screeners that they wanted to actually receive his letters when they were dating. He wondered what it meant that they still wanted to read his letters even when they were not.   
  
Optimus Prime looked cautiously happy to see him and gave him a chaste kiss on his chevron. Sentinel Magnus looked outright grumpy and just threw himself down into a chair to stare out of the box and at the track beyond. They had taken him to see the Tour de Orgenon again. Rodimus Prime observed weakly, trying to make conversation, "Override Prime's deployed, so I bet it'll be Lightyear again."   
  
"I hear Lickety-Split might actually be a contender this year," Optimus Prime replied, and then she took Rodimus by the hand and tugged at him to sit back down in the middle between her and Sentinel. He did, and she asked, apropos of nothing, "Rodimus, do you know when the Decepticons took the CNA sample to make Dark Rodimus?"   
  
CNA was like schematics but more. It was a code that contained everything needed to create a living Transformer, everything except the mind, though life itself did that part. Beyond mental differences, environmental factors could influence how CNA was expressed. CNA was not a be-all and end-all, but it was a beginning. Rodimus Prime hesitated. He disliked prying into Dark Rodimus's memories, and from an official point of view, he did not have them. The whole incident with the mind leech had never been put on record, so it never came up during Dark Rodimus's trial. On the one hand, it meant that he had not been punished for what he had done. On the other hand, it meant that Rodimus Prime could not be tried for counter-stealing Dark Rodimus's memories, even though he would argue that things he did while under the influence of the General of Chaos were not really his fault. Whatever the official story was, looking too deeply into his clone's mind felt like an invasion of privacy.   
  
Optimus Prime looked very serious. Rodimus Prime sighed, dimmed his optics, and took a peek. After a moment of wandering in strange and twisting pathways, he reported, "Dark Rodimus remembers Oil Slick telling him that they procured the CNA sample to make him when... Team Char assaulted space bridge 687-030 the first time, as a part of Megatron's push to cripple and control the space bridge network." Rodimus Prime frowned.   
  
"And when was he made?" Optimus Prime prodded gently, her hand still over his.   
  
Rodimus Prime saw a laboratory full of cylinders, somewhat similar to CR chambers or protoform pods, and he saw his own face in perhaps half a dozen of them, distorted, twisted, and _dead_. There was one with a third optic where his mouth was meant to be, all three optics glassy and unseeing, one with fingers stretched out into impossibly long curved stiletto claws that pierced through his own spark casing, one with... his spark sank and his engine hitched with a spike of fear. He pulled out of the memory. He clutched at Optimus's hand and said, "The Decepticons have been screwing around with cloning programs since the Great War, at least. You know of Magnificus? Clones don't usually work out as intended. Decepticons don't use the same growth factors as we do, and some of their processing and manufacturing steps are different. That's why Magnificus is a bit stockier than Perceptor, his colours and details are different, and he's a diplomat, not a scientist. With Dark Rodimus, they must have started work on the project not long after the assault on space bridge 687-030, though it took them a few stellar cycles to produce a living clone within... acceptable standards." He pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing as he looked back at his stillborn failed clones. What had it done to Dark Rodimus, knowing that there were those who had never lived, just to make way for his existence?   
  
"So Ultra Magnus would have been alive then, perhaps on spark support, depending on the timing, but still alive. Sentinel was only the Elite Guard Commander, and I? I was a mere maintenance-bot." Optimus Prime observed, ironic self-deprecation colouring her sight smile. "Does Dark Rodimus know _why_ he was created?"   
  
Suddenly, Rodimus Prime saw where she was going with her line of questioning. "He _couldn't_ have been created to get close to Sentinel Magnus and assassinate him - because Sentinel wasn't even Magnus then! For all the Decepticons knew, Ultra Magnus might have made a full recovery. Never mind that I hadn't even met Sentinel yet." He put his elbows on his knees and his hands under his chin, thinking rapidly. "Why was he made? They didn't clone anyone else from my team, and Red Alert's pretty famous. Hmm, Dark Rodimus doesn't know. I mean, he knows that his function is as an assassin, but like I've told you before, the Decepticons never told him much. That hit on my team was his first real mission, but that simply cannot be why they went to the trouble of creating and training him." He chewed his lip. "And my team survived a Cosmic Rust attack. That stuff is lethal. Between the Cosmic Rust and Strika being there, we should have been dead. The only reason there would be survivors when a professional like Strika is in command is if... if... she wanted there to be survivors." He paused his train of thought, looked over at Optimus, and demanded quietly, "How did you know?"   
  
"I didn't," Optimus Prime admitted, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. "I just thought it was odd that the Decepticons had a clone of you who was that flawless ready to go so soon after we started dating. I've met Toxitron, my own clone. He's messed up, to put it lightly. Nemesis Prime is completely deranged, though I was never sure if it was an artefact of the cloning process or something that happened to him after his creation. All of the Starscream clones have some major neurosis like pathological lying or extreme cowardice. That, and the circumstances of your survival when Team Chaar first assaulted space bridge 687-030 are pretty peculiar, when you think about them."   
  
"So the Decepticons wanted a clone of me for reasons that had nothing to do with you two, and they wanted me alive for indeterminate reasons," Rodimus Prime summarised, rubbing one of his temples with his free hand. A bleak thought hit him. "My team was put in danger because of _me_."   
  
Sentinel Magnus finally spoke, "Maybe the Decepticons just wanted to replace you? A lot of influential bots thought you might be the next Magnus when you were older. So, if they replaced you young, maybe no one would notice, and boom, there'd be a Decepticon wielding the Magnus Hammer someday. They let you live just so that your clone could take your place later. He couldn't do that if you were confirmed dead. They didn't bother with cloning any of your team because they didn't need to." He shrugged. "It's just an idle thought." Then he scowled. "Though I'm kind of offended I don't have an evil Decepticon clone, too. What if she was hot and a bit slutty?"   
  
"She?" Optimus Prime blurted, optics wide with disbelief.   
  
"What? Starscream had a female clone. It could happen," Sentinel insisted, as if his statements were the most logical in the universe.   
  
Rodimus Prime half-laughed, snapped out of internal torment by Sentinel's sheer absurdity. He rubbed his forehead and admitted, "I, uhm, wow . Now I feel really, really stupid about my breakup rationale. But if I'm really that dangerous to be around -"   
  
"You're worth it," Optimus said firmly. "Someone who is very good at what he does is always going to attract attention, both good and bad. That doesn't mean bots shouldn't try their best. Though I half wonder if some of that bad attention isn't just Decepticon. Looking at your track record, _why_ are you assigned to space bridge 687-030? It's a nothing assignment, one step above maintenance duty." The self-deprecating smirk returned.   
  
"Oh," Rodimus Prime said, blinking. "I just figured that Ultra Magnus wanted me out of the way and out of the public optic. He really wasn't getting any younger."   
  
Sentinel Magnus broke out laughing and put an arm around Rodimus. He demanded, mock severely, "Stop that."   
  
"Stop what?" Rodimus asked, genuinely confused.   
  
"Making me want you back," Sentinel Magnus sighed. He gave Rodimus a serious look. "I don't take rejection very well, you know, but you're just so cunning and so handsome that I don't know if I can help myself."   
  
"Idle thoughts are all well and good, but we need to figure out the real reason why the Decepticons want Rodimus, and it probably isn't his dashing charm. I think it's time that some rookie Major or Minor took over space bridge 687-030 and Rodimus was transferred to an assignment that better befits his track record. A moving assignment, so he's not always in the same place whenever the Decepticons decide they'd like to kidnap him again this quartex." Optimus Prime rolled her optics.   
  
"Optimus, you said I couldn't do that," Sentinel Magnus pouted.   
  
Rodimus Prime had the feeling there was an in-joke here he wasn't getting, and he looked from Sentinel to Optimus, sidelong and wary. Flatly, he asked, "Couldn't what?"   
  
"Assign you to the second-most dangerous billet to make your life dangerous enough that any added hazard from dating politicians would be negligible," Sentinel explained, his face perfectly straight. Rodimus wondered how he managed it.   
  
"I'm not saying that, Sentinel. Just something that properly fits his track record and will keep him on the move." Optimus paused and made a face. "Okay, that's probably the second-most dangerous billet, anyway."   
  
Rodimus Prime laughed and smirked, shrugging. He admitted, "Hey. I can't help being amazing. So if we're done pointing out that the Decepticons have a deeply disturbing interest in me... what about us? I missed you both so much I about drove my team crazy, I guess." He scuffed his foot on the floor and looked down.   
  
"I missed you, too, and I'm a great believer in second chances," Optimus Prime said, a twinkle to her optics.   
  
"One question," Sentinel Magnus said without inflection, "Why didn't you go for a rebound?"   
  
"Uh, really? Wouldn't have been fair to the rebound. I knew who I wanted. You two," Rodimus Prime said softly, "I can't imagine a rebound who could compare."   
  
Optimus and Sentinel both managed to collide with Rodimus's face, bodies in a tangled heap on his lap, as they both had the great idea of climbing onto him and kissing him at the same time. Rodimus Prime laughed and kissed one and then the other, and then he remarked, "Well, I'm glad there's mirrored glass here!"   
  
They could do _anything_ that they wanted! Apparently, that 'anything' was 'Rodimus Prime'. He did not object. They ended up on the floor, because Rodimus's chair could not comfortably fit three, even as flexible as Rodimus Prime was. For a while, Rodimus was on the bottom, Optimus and Sentinel each half on top of him, half at his sides. There were hands all over him, a mouth on his lips, a mouth slicking down the pipes on his forearm, tongue tickling and teasing inside, and legs twisting around his, tugging him open. He had a hand on cab windows, playing with the wiper blade, his mouth down a strong jawline, and his other hand on the small of someone's back. Rodimus Prime basked in the attention and gave it all back.   
  
His engine was already purring, and he was losing track of the electromagnetic fields impinging on his own, as below, the racers did their laps. In a deft move, he pulled his legs out from where they tangled with Sentinel and Optimus's, and he used his hands to vault up between them, landing neatly to sit on that tight little skidplate of Sentinel's. Optimus half-rolled and dragged Rodimus down into a kiss, the perfectly sculpted metal of her luscious lips moulding itself against his. Her tongue moved inside his mouth, swirling against his, and she tasted of diesel, thick and heavy. He drank her in, revelling in her hot mouth against his, close as new paint.   
  
Sentinel Magnus twisted out from under him and climbed over him to press him down against Optimus. His fingers went down into the wheel wells on Rodimus's shoulders, and he spun the axles and then ran his thumbs over the tyres to evoke something of the feel of the road for Rodimus. Then he twirled one faster than the other, and Rodimus felt briefly dizzy, sinking against Optimus Prime.   
  
Determined to given Sentinel a turnabout, Rodimus Prime contorted himself so that his back was against Optimus, and he was face to face with Sentinel. He kissed him senseless and then grabbed his wheels. Optimus's hand wandered down to his thighs, again pulling them apart. Her knees came up to lock them open, and she rubbed his inner thighs until he moaned into Sentinel's mouth.   
  
Rodimus Prime bent his knees back, underneath himself and then his feet up, managing to slide his lower legs between his own upper legs and hers, despite the lock she had on him, and he tickled her thighs with his feet. Optimus Prime exclaimed, "Did you really just -" she paused, panting, "By the AllSpark, you're so flexible!" She reached her fingers into his wheel wells, too, teasing Sentinel's fingers and making Rodimus feel even more like he was going to spin out on a slippery road.   
  
"He got his ankles behind his head the last time we... er... we should do this more often," Sentinel Magnus suggested, leering down at Rodimus, "Perhaps with some visual aids?" He kissed down Rodimus's chest, trailed heat along his abdomen, and finally nipped at Rodimus's pelvic plating.   
  
Rodimus Prime felt tight with want like a coiled spring. The haze of heat bearing down on him did not render him unaware of the cool, wet trickle of lubricant in his port or the aching need of his probe. He pleaded, "Uhm... could we...? Now? Please?"   
  
"Since you asked so nicely," Optimus Prime said, grazing just the sharp edges of her teeth along the side of his helm, near his audio, "What size do you take?"   
  
"Uh, uh... anything from two to, ah, eight. It's adjustable," Rodimus Prime panted. Sentinel was licking him now, which made Rodimus squirm, which made him grind back against Optimus Prime, who moved back against him in turn in a feedback loop of riotous rapture. He barely even noticed Sentinel slotting another diagnostic stick into his arm.   
  
"I always did want an excuse to get one of those novelty eights," Optimus Prime murmured, and Rodimus thought he saw a brief flash of fear in Sentinel's optics, fear that vanished when Rodimus reached down to tickle between Sentinel's legs.   
  
Sentinel Magnus briefly bucked, almost rearing on Rodimus, and then settled down and opened himself to let Rodimus finger him. He went for what he remembered would most quickly lubricate Sentinel. Optimus Prime's probe, a capped size 5 by the feel of it, rubbed between his legs. Rodimus Prime whimpered and opened up for her. He was wet enough that she just eased herself right in, eliciting another moan from him. He licked his lips, almost able to taste the sensuality, and arched himself back into her.   
  
Rodimus Prime pulled his finger out of Sentinel, snapped on a firewall cap, and entered him with his probe instead, that vibrating one Sentinel liked the last time, because Rodimus preferred having every advantage he could when he was dealing with a lover with more endurance than he had. He had a few other special models, but he wanted to save those for another time. The way this vibrating probe made Sentinel cry out and grab hard at Rodimus Prime's shoulders was exquisite, anyway. Sentinel Magnus was still blissfully tight, too, his port clenching so wonderfully on Rodimus's probe, his whole body rocking back to meet Rodimus as he thrust.   
  
Of course there was Optimus Prime behind and inside him, so strong and firm, hard as boron nitride. Rodimus Prime had to take a little while to figure out a rhythm that worked for all three of them, but when he hit it, he did not want to stop, ever. He could have just stayed lost in an endless moment of making love to his two beloveds, loving and being loved in turn.   
  
Almost as an afterthought, Sentinel Magnus pried at Rodimus's arm, going for a link cable. Optimus Prime pried, too. Rodimus Prime laughed, a light, stuttering sound, and panted, "You're n-not going to do to me what we did to Optimus, a-are you?"   
  
"We're practically required to," Optimus Prime mock-scolded, her plunges inside him steady and powerful.   
  
"Oh yes, yes , I think it imperative," Sentinel Magnus almost cooed, such a slick, perfect fit. He kissed Rodimus, tongue and all, and Rodimus melted into his mouth.   
  
When the kiss broke, Rodimus Prime exulted, "Because that sounds amazing ." He basked in the attention lavished upon him, soaked it in until he could feel it deep down in his struts. He reached for the retracted tip of Sentinel's probe and rubbed it with his thumb, and he subtlety shifted the vibration patterns of his probe from sweet and slow to something hotter and harder. Sentinel Magnus hollered louder and tightened his grip on Rodimus's shoulders, fingers almost biting into the metal.   
  
Optimus Prime stroked his spoiler, too, which had been carefully avoided so long that the contrast of sudden sensation was almost unbearable. Rodimus Prime knew he was fighting a losing battle, but he at least wanted Sentinel to come before he did.   
  
Losing had seldom been so sweet.   
  
They both held him tight as pulsing waves of pleasure spreading from two sources collided and combined, intensifying. The simultaneous port and probe orgasms were overwhelming, and his optics automatically shut off just to help him cope with the torrential influx of input. His cooling fans outright screamed like jet engines, and he screamed, too, something primal and incoherent that he would not even remember later.   
  
Rodimus Prime panted and his body heaved, and very rarely had he ever felt so exquisitely _good._   
  
Coherence trickled again, and they were still holding and lazily stroking him, snug and warm. Rodimus Prime struggled to straighten himself out and detached his probe, snapping a handle on the end instead. Apologetic and contrite, he offered, "I _wanted_ to get you off first."   
  
A leer and a smirk both gracing his face, Sentinel Magnus petted the crest on Rodimus's helm and assured, "The look on your face was worth it."   
  
Rodimus Prime leaned into his hand for a moment and then pushed Sentinel off of him and onto his side. He extricated himself from Optimus Prime and went down on Sentinel, to lick that retracted tip and pump him with what was now more of a dildo. He suggested, solicitously, "Pop it out and let me suck you off?"   
  
He did not think that Sentinel's expression could be any smugger, but somehow, Sentinel managed it. Rodimus Prime kissed the head and rubbed the shaft with his free hand.   
  
Optimus Prime rolled after him and remarked, "I don't believe I'm done with you yet." She nuzzled his already-sensitised port, making him gasp around Sentinel's shaft, and then she flicked her tongue into his port, light and quick. The sensation was different than the solid strength of her probe, more pliant and yielding, thinner, but he wanted it, too.   
  
Out of the corner of his optics, he noticed Sentinel and Optimus angling around, so that the three of them made a triangle on their sides, Sentinel licking and fingering Optimus's two ports.   
  
No one paid any attention to who actually won the race.

 

* * *

  
"More of a spring to your step," Dark Rodimus observed, optics narrowed critically, " _Now_ have you come to gloat?"   
  
Rodimus Prime half-sighed, half-smiled and shook his head. He waved a hand dismissively and said, "I just want to talk."   
  
"I can scarcely imagine that you have anything to say that is worth hearing," Dark Rodimus sniffed, but there was a starving glint to his red optics. He was bored almost to the point of pain, as if any break would be a balm.   
  
Rodimus Prime snorted, "Sure you do, tough guy. I think you're in the position to take what you can get."   
  
"What I can get? As opposed to what I want? Oh, I won't grovel. I think that has to be more your style," Dark Rodimus said.   
  
"I do not grovel," Rodimus Prime said flatly. He was not going to let Dark Rodimus get to him this time. He intended exactly the opposite.   
  
"No? That spring in your step. Did you best them in hand to hand combat and throw them down, broken and leaking, and then take what you _wanted_?" Dark Rodimus inquired, prodding verbally to remind that even caged, he was not without weapons.   
  
Rodimus Prime made a disgusted face and snapped, "No! No. There are options between grovelling and assault! That isn't how Autobots go about things. We just... have a conversation and talk things out. That's something you are going to need to learn how to do."   
  
"And if I don't?" Dark Rodimus tilted his head.   
  
"Then you have to put up with more of me until you do," Rodimus Prime concluded, smiling broadly.

 

* * *

  
Sentinel Magnus was somewhat surprised to see Rodimus leaving Trypticon Prison. Then he remembered that Rodimus Prime liked to visit his evil clone, something that he had read in a recent security memo on his boyfriend. Sentinel Magnus disapproved of Rodimus visiting Dark Rodimus on general principles, which was to say that he disapproved for no good reason he could actually define, so he had promptly forgotten that security memo. He transformed out of snowplow mode, deciding to try to flag Rodimus down for a chat, since he was waiting anyway.   
  
He must have transformed too quickly, because he turned and walked right into Rodimus, who had been about to transform, so Sentinel Magnus went down flat on his back with a sports car on top of him. He groaned, but the lovely view of Rodimus's undercarriage somewhat compensated for the blow his pride took. Rodimus Prime transformed back to robot mode, rolled off him, and offered him a hand up, smiling that rakishly handsome smile of his. He remarked, amused, "We have _got_ to stop running into each other like this."   
  
"Mmph. If anyone saw this, the picture's going to be up on all the news sites before I'm done talking," Sentinel groused, and he took Rodimus Prime's hand up. Of course Sentinel bonking into Rodimus and falling over would be news-worthy. The public leapt at any chance to poke fun at him.   
  
"What are you doing here, anyway - wait, no, I have it. Optimus comes during visiting hours sometimes. There's all that speculation about why..." Rodimus Prime said, and he fondly brushed a hand over Sentinel to dust him off after that tumble.   
  
"She didn't do it earlier this round of leave, so she's here now," Sentinel explained stiffly, not much wanting to talk about it. He gave the matter a second thought and realised that his lack of desire to discuss the matter meant that he probably should. He admitted hesitantly, "We should talk about it, the three of us, when she comes out."   
  
"Oh?" Rodimus Prime inquired, his curiosity obviously piqued. He slid behind Sentinel, wrapped his arms around his waist, and nuzzled his shoulder.   
  
Rodimus was more openly physically affectionate than Sentinel Magnus was accustomed to; Optimus Prime tended to be far more reserved in public. His sensors prickled under his armour but not unpleasantly. He could learn to like the feeling, he thought. Besides, holo snapshots of someone being chastely lovey-dovey with Sentinel Magnus would never go up _anywhere_. Doing something happy and pleasant and normal was the next best thing to invisibility for him. Perhaps Sentinel was being bitter or over-exaggerating the situation, but he had his reasons for his ill moods. He tentatively placed his hands over Rodimus's and leaned back against him, just enjoying his presence. Then Sentinel nodded and made himself say, "Yeah. We should."   
  
"Then I'll wait for her with you," Rodimus Prime offered. He broke away, took Sentinel's hand, and sat them both down on a bench, adding, "It's nicer to wait with company than to sit there with your engine idling, anyway."   
  
"Thought you were going to go catch up with Blaster today?" Sentinel asked, sitting himself up straight, hands folded properly in his lap.   
  
"Studio had to call him in for another taping last minute," Rodimus Prime sighed, but he was still smiling. "I'll catch him sometime before I go. Or the next time we both have leave." He shrugged, apparently not overly bothered.   
  
He almost envied that Rodimus could be so cavalier about his friends and acquaintances. Sentinel Magnus did not have so many genuine friends to his name that he could afford to shrug off missing one if the chance came up. His political alliances were exactly that: alliances, no more and less. Epsilon Supreme was always in the back of his spark, but there were a limited number of recreational activities one could safely undertake with an Omega Sentinel. The Twins were around almost all the time. He had regular meetings with Cliffjumper Prime, but that was work. He saw Jazz only when Optimus Prime had leave, and Optimus and Rodimus were another story entirely. If he saw them every day they had leave, it would not be enough, Sentinel was certain, but he could not and they could not. A Magnus had duties more pressing than entertaining his lovers, and they both had more to their lives than spending all their leave with him.   
  
Rodimus Prime took Sentinel's hand again and leaned against him lightly.   
  
They were discussing the role that the media played in destroying the self-image of pontoon-boats when Optimus Prime came out of Trypticon prison. She looked both surprised and pleased, and Sentinel Magnus had to suppress the jealous thought that she might be solely excited to see Rodimus Prime. He told himself that she could be happy to see them both or maybe even happy about how Sentinel and Rodimus looked sitting on a bench together or that, possibly, her emotional state did not involve either of them at all and perhaps her cheer was because she had just heard some completely unrelated good news. Keeping down envy was _hard_.   
  
Then Optimus exclaimed, "Rodimus Prime! What a nice surprise to see you," and for a brief moment, Sentinel wondered why he bothered trying. Then she added, "And Sentinel Magnus. I bet you were glad of the company."   
  
"Yeah. I was," Sentinel admitted, looking over at Rodimus, "Blaster had to cancel with him. We could all go back to my," he corrected himself, and it felt strange but good, " _our_ quarters?"   
  
"Sounds good," Optimus said, clearly thinking very different things than Sentinel was, and they drove.   
  
Driving with Rodimus Prime meant seeing a lot of his taillights, which was not a bad thing, as views went. He was just plain faster, even if he was not a true high speed vehicle, and he had the advanced driving permits to drive as he did, which was good, because otherwise, every Autotrooper from here to Altihex would have been on his tail, too, instead of just Optimus and Sentinel.   
  
"Eager much?" Optimus Prime deadpanned, as the door locked behind them.   
  
There was already a gaming system in the lounge; Rodimus Prime had put it there as soon as the forms to officialise his shore residence were filed. Rodimus had always just lived on base before, but moving in with them meant he had a permanent place to stay and the access codes for entry. Sentinel Magnus felt some trepidation about what other 'improvements' to the decor that Rodimus might make and conspicuously ignored the gaming system as he passed it by to sit down on the couch instead. Seated, he looked up at Optimus and said, as seriously as he could, "Optimus Prime. We need to tell Rodimus Prime about her."   
  
Optimus Prime stiffened and did not sit. Rodimus Prime's optics cycled a blink, and he looked torn between sitting with Sentinel or standing with Optimus. He hovered between them. Optimus Prime said quietly, "Sentinel... we don't need to go digging up the past."   
  
He snorted, "But you do it every time you have leave. At least this time you saw me first and waited until the middle..." Sentinel shook his head and tried to get a grip on himself. Gritting his dental plates, he reminded himself that he was not trying to stir up their old arguments. He was _trying_ to be helpful here. "...anyway, Rodimus deserves to know."   
  
"I'm not sure..." Optimus hedged. She looked uncomfortable, and for a moment, Sentinel wanted to swerve his course. He did not want to upset her.   
  
He had always been good at ignoring the discomfort of others, though, and he gently threatened, "If we don't tell him together, I'll tell him alone."   
  
"Are you _upset_ I didn't warn you? We've been through this," Optimus said, glaring, and she crossed her arms.   
  
"Is this about Blackarachnia?" Rodimus Prime asked innocently. He puts his hands up, empty and open. "No one's ever been able to get the scoop why you visit her, but it's an open secret that you do, and given the timing..."   
  
"Yes," Optimus Prime admitted, looking down and away.   
  
"You know that we have enemies. You've accepted that. Blackarachnia is one of them," Sentinel Magnus said, matter of fact, "More so than the average Decepticon. If she ever gets loose, spider-glitch might gun for your head just for knowing us."   
  
"She's not an enemy," Optimus said, contained anger simmering under her voice, "but she's... dangerous. Not well." She spread her hands and turned a beseeching look at Rodimus.   
  
Sentinel Magnus looked away. As far as he was concerned, Elita-1 was dead. Blackarachnia was a monstrosity that deserved to die. He felt no shame in thinking these thoughts. The guilt came whenever he saw how _betrayed_ Optimus looked when Sentinel talked about getting rid of that freak for good. For her, he tried to stay civil.   
  
Rodimus Prime chewed his lip pensively and said softly, "Who is she to you, Optimus?"   
  
Optimus Prime visibly struggled with how to phrase their complicated history and settled on, "An old flame. She was an Autobot, once. I loved her, a long time ago. Sentinel did too, though he pretends that he never did, now."   
  
Unable to stop himself, Sentinel Magnus stood and argued, "It's not her anymore. I won't love a lie."   
  
Rodimus Prime stood between them, a hand on each of their chests, looking more sombre and intent than he usually did. He interjected, "Hey. I can see this is hard on the both of you, and I appreciate you warning me." His faint smile felt like warm sunshine on Sentinel's hood while rolling down a lazy highway. "So you... know Blackarachnia, and given the chance, she might... kill me?" He looked at the both of them searchingly.   
  
"No," Optimus Prime said immediately, "She would never."   
  
"Yes," corrected Sentinel Magnus, "She definitely would."   
  
"She gave my crew an antidote to save their lives. She didn't have to," Optimus Prime reminded.   
  
"She tried to _kill me_ ," Sentinel Magnus all but roared, his old fury returning to him.   
  
"Only because you -" Optimus started to say.   
  
Rodimus Prime cut her off gracefully, "She tried to kill him. I don't think you can excuse that. I killed Blackout. I can't _excuse_ it. I can explain it. That's all. Optimus, if by some chance, she does get loose and comes after me, I will do everything I can to capture her alive, but Sentinel? I'll do everything I can to keep myself alive, too."   
  
The anger went out of Sentinel, though a peevish part of him missed it. He sagged, and he saw Optimus backing down, too. Optimus Prime murmured wearily, "Thank you."   
  
Sentinel Magnus merely growled, "You'd better keep yourself alive."   
  
"Now, if you don't have any other pressing dark secrets," Rodimus said slowly, moving his hands down from their chests to their hips, "why don't I thank you for that warning, huh?"

 

**The End**


End file.
